通过美乌自由贸易协定巩固乌克兰战后复苏（英）

Recovery with a US-Ukraine FreeTrade Agreement. Robert Z. Lawrence and Sergii TelenykMarch 2026 Note:The authors thank Gary Hufbauer, Maurice Obstfeld, and Alan Wolff for theirhelpful comments; Professors Ricardo Hausmann, Meghan O’Sullivan, and Mark Wufor organizing and participating in a roundtable discussion on this issue; Madona INTRODUCTION The war with Russia has caused extensive damage to infrastructure, housing,energy systems, logistics networks, and productive capacity in Ukraine.Reconstruction in the aftermath will be a mammoth task.1.Beyond just repairingthe damage, as Yuriy Gorodnichenko and Maurice Obstfeld (2026) highlight, Robert Z. Lawrenceisa nonresident seniorfellow at the PetersonInstitute for InternationalEconomics and the Albert Sergii Telenykholdsa Master’s in PublicAdministration from Official aid, concessional lending, and multilateral development bank supportcan finance emergency needs and public goods, but they cannot by themselvessustain long-term growth or modernization. For this, private investment must playthe leading role. Sustained growth depends on private choices: on companies Yet private decision makers currently face profound uncertainty. One set ofconcerns relates to internal policy risks: that regulations may be applied arbitrarily, that corruption could distort fair competition, or that reforms might be reversedif political coalitions change. A second set of concerns relates to internationalinstability. Even if international peace agreements are signed, investors will Trade policy is not a panacea for these challenges. Nevertheless, in certainhistorical contexts—particularly in transition and postconflict economies—trade agreements have played a useful supplementary role as institutionalcommitment devices. By embedding domestic policy choices within international Ukraine has already initiated a more active trade policy aimed at immediatebenefits. Since 2022, it has achieved free trade access for its exports to theEuropean Union, the United Kingdom, and Canada, and as a result, has reliedon its agricultural exports as the major source of wartime export revenues.Integration with the European Union is also at the center of its longer-run Agreements on closer economic ties between Ukraine and the United Statescan play an important supplementary role to these EU initiatives. These couldrange from an agenda of discreet agreements to a comprehensive free tradeagreement (FTA). Since EU membership requires Ukraine adopting thecommonEU external tariff, some might question if a US-Ukraine FTA would be compatiblewith accession. Indeed, given EU rates on US imports prior to the July 2025 (so- It should be noted, however, that the US Supreme Court in February 2026struck down President Donald Trump’s tariffs that he used as leverage in Parliament. Nonetheless, Trump is seeking to exert leverage through the use ofother US trade laws, and, assuming that ultimately the EU tariff commitments For Ukraine, these agreements with the United States could achievestronger investor protections, regulatory transparency, and anticorruption anddispute settlement mechanisms that anchor private investment and accelerateconvergence toward advanced-economy standards, while diversifying export For the United States, Ukraine offers a strategically valuable productionplatform: a large, skilled workforce; a legacy industrial base; and significant reservesof critical minerals, metals, and agricultural inputs needed for energy transition,defense, and supply chain resilience. Preferential trade and investment rules would Strategically, a US-Ukraine FTA would help lock Ukraine into Westerneconomic institutions and standards, preventing postwar drift toward Russianor Chinese influence and ensuring that the rules governing a $500 billion We develop these arguments in this Policy Brief. Section I reviews of thecurrent state of Ukraine-US trade and investment relations and discusses theirpotential for growth in the context of an FTA. Section II highlights the need toreform Ukraine’s weak internal governance and institutions and the potential I.US-UKRAINE TRADE AND INVESTMENT Bilateral trade between the United States and Ukraine is modest. In 2024,total bilateral trade stood at roughly $2.9 billion.4.America accounts for only The asymmetry is even clearer on the export side. Only 2 percent7ofUkraine’s exports go to the United States—less than half of the volume exportedto Turkey and one-fifth of that exported to Poland (see table 1), while Ukraine Ukraine exports largely raw materials to the United States and importshigh-value-added goods in return. On the one hand, Ukrainian exports to theUnited States are concentrated in a narrow set of products, including iron andsteel products, selected agricultural goods, and a small range of manufactureditems, and US shares reflect the limited importance of the US market for even 50 percent additional tariffs on steel and aluminum were imposed.12On the