Trade

With its central location, access to more than 30 ports, more than 300,000 miles of road and 10,000 miles of rail, Texas serves as a premiere logistical hub for the United States. Freight rail acts as a major contributor, with the state moving 385 million tons of goods in 2023 alone. But growing demands and changing infrastructure will challenge freight rail’s ability to support the state's trade activity, a cause for concern for the entire industry.

There is a way to secure Texas’s status as a logistical hub: a Union Pacific–Norfolk Southern merger. This proposed merger would create the first true transcontinental freight rail network under a single system, eliminating the time consuming carrier handoffs that add days and significant cost to cross-country shipments and positioning Texas as a major hub linking freight flows between the East and West Coasts. Strengthening these connections would reinforce the Lone Star State’s role in the national supply chain, improve economic efficiency, and ease pressure on already strained roadway infrastructure.

Texas’ economy and its success are reliant on trade, and to a greater extent, freight efficiency. By investing in infrastructure, the state can maintain its competitive edge in key industries like energy and agriculture. America’s energy industry has become increasingly reliant on freight rail because of its cost-efficient ability to move bulk commodities across long distances, making Texas keenly aware how important an efficient rail system is.

In 2021, extreme weather conditions caused a natural gas pipeline in Texas to fail. Texas’ freight rail system allowed essential fuel to continue moving, keeping homes heated and Texans safe. A Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern merger would create an essential connection of energy corridors and work to resolve potential catastrophe.

The real questions are as follows: 1) is the damage of the trade war worth it? Is the short-term harm worth some greater long-term good? Some critical geopolitical strategy? 

And 2) are tariffs the best way to accomplish the possible long-term good asserted? 

For over 16 years, the Institute for Policy Innovation has released numerous publications warning the risks of such a scheme cannot be overstated—foremost the public health danger, since it is impossible for the U.S. to guarantee the safety of imported drugs.

The following is a history of IPI’s research into the question of whether the U.S. should open its drug market to imported pharmaceuticals.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar announced the Trump administration will reverse a decades-long policy and create a way for Americans to import prescription drugs from Canada.

Azar says that by moving forward on reimportation, the administration is putting Americans patients first. But IPI experts agree that the practice has been illegal chiefly because it puts Americans in harm’s way. Importantly, drug manufacturers cannot guarantee the safety of prescription drugs reimported to the United States.

It's pretty clear by now that the Trump administration's favorite way to put pressure on another country to accomplish some political goal is to threaten and impose tariffs. 

In fact, tariffs have become an all-purpose foreign policy tool for the Trump administration. China's theft of IP and unfair business practices? Tariffs. China's supposed currency manipulation? Tariffs. China's trade surplus with the United States? Tariffs.

The US steel industry not doing great? Tariffs.

And now, trying to get Mexico to do more to stem the flow of migrants into the US? Well, tariffs, of course.

Now, the common retort to criticism of tariffs is something along the lines of "Well, at least he's doing something!" Or, "Don't you think we should do something about China's IP theft\China's currency manipulation\hordes of illegal immigrants from Mexico?"

Well, yes, actually. I DO think the president should be addressing all of those things, and I'm glad he is. I just don't think tariffs are the only or the best tool to accomplish those purposes. There are other tools in the quiver besides tariffs.

President Reagan's 1988 radio address on free trade, delivered soon after the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement was signed, remains timely. 

My fellow Americans:

This week, as we prepared for Thanksgiving, Canada held an important election, and I'm pleased to again send my congratulations to Prime Minister Mulroney. One of the important issues in the Canadian election was trade. And like our own citizens earlier this month, our neighbors have sent a strong message, rejecting protectionism and reaffirming that more trade, not less, is the wave of the future.

Here in America, as we reflect on the many things we have to be grateful for, we should take a moment to recognize that one of the key factors behind our nation's great prosperity is the open trade policy that allows the American people to freely exchange goods and services with free people around the world. The freedom to trade is not a new issue for America. In 1776 our Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence, charging the British with a number of offenses, among them, and I quote, "cutting off our trade with all parts of the world," end quote.

On Tuesday, IPI resident scholar Dr. Merrill Matthews joined CGTN-TV’s “The Heat” host Anand Naidoo to discuss President Donald Trump’s state visit to the United Kingdom and what it means for future trade relations between the two powers.

Despite the president’s optimistic statements at the St. James’s Palace joint press conference with Prime Minister Theresa May, Matthews voiced skepticism of the U.S. making a “quick deal” on trade post-Brexit.

After meeting with U.S. officials in Beijing this week, China is in turn expected to send delegates to Washington for continued trade talks.

IPI’s Dr. Merrill Matthews joined a panel on CGTN’s The Heat to discuss whether these meetings are laying hopes for a resolution on trade.

Amid rising tensions in U.S.-China trade, IPI resident scholar Dr. Merrill Matthews joined CGTN America’s The Heat where he noted that China’s retaliatory tariffs are indeed highly targeted toward likely supporters of President Trump, while the U.S.-imposed tariffs are hammering all American consumers and the opposite of “draining the swamp.”

In his latest interview with CGTN-America TV’s The Heat, IPI’s Dr. Merrill Matthews addressed tensions between the U.S. and Iran, as well as U.S.-China trade relations. Click here to watch the full discussion.