SNEK POLICY
Trade: Open Markets Without Exporting American Jobs
SNEK supports international trade and American companies competing around the world, but free trade does not require tax policy that rewards replacing American workers with cheaper foreign labor.
Trade is good when it creates value
Americans should be free to buy, sell, import, export, invest, and compete internationally. International expansion is not automatically a problem.
Expansion is different from displacement
Opening an overseas facility to serve an overseas market while maintaining or expanding American employment is different from closing an American facility and recreating the same work abroad.
Strong deterrent against offshoring
Genuine offshoring that eliminates American jobs and transfers substantially equivalent work overseas should face a large labor-displacement assessment tied to jobs, payroll, duration, local impact, and worker-transition efforts.
Protect domestic competitiveness
The goal is not economic isolation. America should remain one of the best places in the world to manufacture, innovate, automate, train workers, and build companies.
Security exceptions remain narrow
Trade restrictions can also be justified where narrow national-security risks require protection of strategically essential domestic capacity.
The SNEK position
Trade with the world. Compete with the world. Reward domestic investment. Do not make replacing American workers with cheaper foreign labor the obvious tax-efficient decision.
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Why SNEK thinks this
SNEK supports international trade because specialization, competition, and access to global markets can benefit Americans. The objection is not foreign business activity itself. It is a tax and policy environment that can make eliminating an American workforce and recreating substantially equivalent jobs overseas the obvious cheapest option.
How it would work
International expansion that serves foreign customers while maintaining or expanding American employment should be treated normally. Genuine offshoring that closes or shrinks American operations and recreates substantially equivalent work abroad should face a significant labor-displacement assessment tied to jobs, payroll, duration, facility closures, community impact, and the company’s efforts to transfer, retrain, or retain workers. Revenue should support American workforce transition and industrial capacity.
Where we’re flexible or still working it out
The policy is not economic isolation and should not punish ordinary imports, exports, foreign subsidiaries, or global supply chains merely for crossing borders. The trigger is displacement of American labor and productive capacity. Exact assessment rates should be high enough to affect the business decision but should be designed around measurable displacement rather than political favoritism.
Related SNEK policies
The Strongest Military in the World. Not the World’s Police. • Allies, Not Dependents. Cooperation, Not Automatic Wars.