He helped Trump remake global trade. His work isn’t done.

livemint.com:

Former President Donald Trump rewrote the consensus on trade policy, so much so that President Biden largely copied it: Prioritize domestic manufacturing, deprioritize trade deals, sideline the World Trade Organization and embrace tariffs. Other than Trump himself, no one did more to refashion that consensus than his trade ambassador, Robert Lighthizer. He has unfinished business.

In a book published last year and in a recent interview, Lighthizer describes an agenda encompassing an even bigger shift in global trade. Despite the change in policy since 2016, global-trade imbalances persist, notably the U.S. deficit and China’s surplus.

Lighthizer thinks the elimination of these imbalances via tariffs, and perhaps other tools such as capital controls, ought to be the overarching goal of U.S. trade policy. “I have migrated from thinking we need superficial fair trade to realizing that that is unachievable, and what we really need is balanced trade," Lighthizer said in an interview in Palm Beach, Fla., where he lives a few miles from Mar-a-Lago.

“Not balanced every year and with every country, but over time and globally." He added: “Every country should be exporting in order to import. If you’re running chronic surpluses for decades, then you are by definition a protectionist. You’re engaging in industrial policy to help yourself, you’re transferring resources from your consumers to your producers, you’re trying to … acquire other countries’ assets." These used to be called beggar-thy-neighbor policies, he said, “and they have to stop." Lighthizer makes it clear he is speaking only for himself, not for Trump.