How export restrictions threaten economic security

Fear that a foreign government will impose export restrictions that imperil another country's economic and national security has driven part of the recent turn to industrial policy and the increased use of tariffs. Countries now worry about disruption to their access not only to energy but also to critical minerals, semiconductors, medical supplies, and other essential goods. Modern use of industrial and trade policy is thus often an attempt to move supply chains in the short term and to sustain them in those new places over the long term, in order to reduce national vulnerability to disruptions caused by export restrictions. However, achieving even modest forms of international cooperation on trade and industrial policy between countries seeking to improve their collective economic security will also require that these same countries take on new commitments to discipline their own use of export restrictions toward each other.