Free but secure trade: priorities in support of national security

In an era of increasing global fragmentation and acute security competition, it will be, as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has stated, “increasingly difficult to separate economic issues from broader considerations of national interest, including national security.” This report focuses on that interaction of economics and national security with recommendations to achieve the “free but secure trade” that Secretary Yellen has identified as an objective. The goal is to assure that adversaries cannot “use their market position in key raw materials, technologies, or products to have the power to disrupt our economy or exercise unwanted geopolitical leverage.”

The report has two parts, discussing: institutional actions to enhance free but secure trade and investment including establishing resilient international markets and supply chains; and securing resilient domestic markets by establishing limitations on trade and investment to assure protection from predatory Russian and Chinese behavior.