Trade-Barrier Mitigation Strategies

Following the dramatic changes in US trade policy in recent years, businesses are now forced to navigate an increasingly complicated patchwork of “managed trade” agreements, myriad tariff rates, and complicated non-tariff barriers such as product certification, safety standards, and import-export controls on strategic resources and technologies. This course will explore the economic impact of these developments on business and analyze some of the specific strategies companies can and are implementing to mitigate the impact of greater trade frictions, increased policy volatility, higher costs, and more difficult compliance. This course has been developed and will be delivered by a teaching team with substantial experience in senior leadership roles in national and international policy, strategy in large multinationals with cross-border value chains, and advisory with hundreds of companies. Participants in the course will, therefore, gain insights on trade-barrier mitigation economics, strategies, and tactics from the perspective of faculty practitioners and guest speakers, through the lens of specific, practical case studies of how companies have adapted sourcing, supply chains, manufacturing, sales, and distribution to rapidly changing policies and challenges. Students will be equipped with a solid grasp of the shifting fundamentals of what remains of the global trading system, varied regional and sectoral structures, and the emerging great-power economic multiplex. In this context, group work is a fundamental component of this course.