Trade Policy Consolidation: Sidelining Workers and Independent Analysis
Project 2025 proposes centralizing trade and economic policy under direct presidential control by purging advisory committees and career economists, threatening labor protections, democratic accountability, and evidence-based policymaking.
The text proposes that the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) 'dispose of legacy advisory committees with members who serve special interests' — but in practice, these committees include labor union representatives, environmental advocates, and consumer protection groups who provide the only formal non-corporate check on trade negotiating positions. Eliminating them concentrates trade policy in a small circle of presidential loyalists, insulating deals from scrutiny by the workers most affected by import competition, wage suppression, and offshoring. The mechanism of harm is explicit: replacing pluralistic interagency deliberation with top-down presidential directive enforced by a loyalist USTR. Workers in manufacturing, agriculture, and service sectors — disproportionately Black, Latino, and rural white communities — bear the consequences of trade agreements negotiated without their input.
A progressive alternative would strengthen, not gut, formal worker and community participation in trade policy. Congress should amend the Trade Act of 1974 to require that the USTR's advisory committee system include majority representation from labor organizations (e.g., AFL-CIO, SEIU), environmental groups, and frontline community representatives, with binding consultation requirements before any fast-track authority is invoked. The USTR should be required to conduct and publish distributional impact analyses — broken down by race, gender, and income — for any proposed trade agreement, in coordination with the Bureau of Labor Statistics and publicly accessible economic modeling frameworks.
The broader document (in sections not excerpted here) also addresses the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA). To the extent Project 2025 proposes subordinating the CEA's senior staff to political alignment tests, that would directly undermine the CEA's statutory mandate under the Employment Act of 1946 to provide advice 'based on data, research, and evidence.' Subordinating the CEA to political loyalty corrupts the one institution within the EOP explicitly designed to inject empirical rigor into policy, opening the door to analysis shaped to justify predetermined outcomes — a pattern with documented harm in deregulatory and austerity policy cycles. Project Daylight will cover the CEA provisions in a dedicated entry once the relevant chapter pages are confirmed.
On the trade side, Congress should reinforce independent analysis by codifying civil service protections for career trade economists and requiring that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) audit the methodology of trade-impact assessments produced under USTR direction, preventing the office from becoming a political messaging arm.
Original source — excerpted
project2025 Project 2025 ch. ?: unknown (pp 88-89)"— 55 — Executive Office of the President of the United States EOP components organize and drive a coordinated policy agenda on behalf of the President. The People’s Republic of China’s predatory trade practices have disrupted the open-market trading system that has provided mutual benefit to all participating countries—including China—for decades. The failure of the World Trade Organi - zation (WTO) to discipline China for abrogation of its trading commitments has seriously undermined its credibility and made it a largely ineffective institution. The United States, through an empowered USTR, must act to rebalance and refocus international trading relationships in favor of democratic nations that embrace free, fair, and open trade principles built on market-driven economies. Chapter 26 of this book outlines recommended trade policy priorities for the incoming President. However, regardless of the approach, successful implemen - tation of that trade agenda will require the President to articulate a clear policy direction and instructions for the executive branch to operate in a coordinated fashion under the leadership of an empowered USTR. To address these and other chall…"