With the Brexit referendum, election of Donald Trump, and the continued stasis at the World Trade Organization (WTO), the liberal, rules-based trading order is facing considerable pressure for business and policymakers.[1] These pressures come from structural economic forces, systemic changes in geopolitics, domestic political conflicts in the US and elsewhere, and a rethinking of the ideological consensus around the benefits of free trade. This conference will focus on the political economy, business, and legal aspects of trade policy in the Trump era. Our goals are two-fold: 1) to examine the evolving structural economic and political forces driving recent trade policy developments; 2) to understand the legal, economic, and political bases for the shift in US trade policy priorities, and 3) to discuss likely responses from US trading partners and the overall consequences for business and the global economic order.
Sponsored by the UC Berkeley Law School, the Institute of East Asian Studies, Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law, and the Clausen Center for International Business and Policy