The Global Mercantilist Index : A New Approach to Ranking Nations’ Trade Policies

Countries' use of mercantilist policies in recent years has expanded dramatically, particularly in emerging economies such as Brazil, China, and India. These practices, such as forced technology transfer or local production as a condition of market access, intellectual property (IP) theft, compulsory licensing of IP, restrictions on cross-border data flows, and currency manipulation, all distort trade and investment and damage the global economy.Collectively, these policies represent a major threat to the integrity of the global trading system and they demand a coherent and bold response from both free-trading nations such as the United States, as well as multilateral trade and development organizations, such as the World Bank, the WTO, and the United Nations. Despite this, many choose to turn a blind eye to mercantilism, for instance, the World Bank's Temporary Trade Barriers Database 2013 Update asserts that protectionism may have peaked, and is now subsiding. ITIF refutes that claim, arguing that mercantilism is indeed still a major concern not only for the U.S. economy but for the entire global economy and trading system. It's time the U.S. government and its like-minded trading partners get more serious about confronting mercantilism.In order for the U.S. to take the lead in more effectively combating foreign mercantilism, it is time for Congress to provide the charge and the resources to the United States Trade Representative to develop an annual comprehensive ranking of nations' mercantilist policies; in other words, a “Global Mercantilist Index”. ITIF's “Global Mercantilist Index” (GMI) uses a new comprehensive method to rank nations on mercantilist policies, while also proposing new policy tools to address the problem