This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, March 11th, 2021.

I'm cable Brown.

National security looms large over trade policy, especially in the last four years,

but national security justifications for trade restrictions

more broadly go back still further.

But it's no longer a good idea, if it ever was, to give the president a virtually impregnable justification for engaging

in all manner of trade meddling with almost no oversight. Cato's Eno Monick and Scott Linsicum

discuss what it might take to turn the tide.

You know, I want to start with you.

How long and how extensive have these national security justifications for trade restrictions been?

So Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 has had a long history. It's been in existence for 58 years, but in that

58 year existence it's been used pretty rarely actually. One oddity is what the

Trump administration did with it in just four years.

They used it a lot more than previous presidents have used it.

To put in a bit of context in its 58 year existence, the Trump administration was responsible for 24% of all

investigations ever done under this statute and 40% of all the positive findings that there was a national security threat and they have

undertaken 25% of all actions ever taken under this statute as well.

So while Section 2 through 2 has been around for a long time,

President Trump certainly used and abused it more than his predecessors.

And Scott, when we say national security, or I should say when administrations use the term

national security when they're going to engage in some sort of trade restriction,

what definition are they going by?

...