The Biden administration’s recently announced Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF), which aims to strengthen cooperation between the United States and multiple Asian nations on economic, trade, and technology issues, has elicited a fairly consistent response both domestically and internationally: Nice job, but try again. IPEF is a trade partnership, not a formal trade agreement, and foreign nations say what they really want is access to U.S. markets that the latter would have guaranteed. Many in the U.S. trade policy community agree, arguing that IPEF is a well-meaning but largely hollow effort.
Both are wrong. The United States can no longer afford to trade U.S. market access for geopolitical alignment, and other nations can no longer afford to stay on the sidelines as the United States does the hard work of limiting China’s economic, technological, and foreign-policy aggression alone. The sooner the U.S. trade policy establishment and IPEF nations realize this, the better off we all will be. IPEF nations may not want to look too far ahead in considering the double-edged sword that is burgeoning Chinese trade and investment. But having China—a country whose trading practices are hegemonic, thin-skinned, and punitive—as one’s main trading partner is sure to eventually end in tears.
