通过美乌自由贸易协定巩固乌克兰战后复苏

Robert Z. Lawrence and Sergii Telenyk.March 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; MadonaDevasahayam for editing assistance; and the CILOS think tank for its generous supportof research on the prospects of US-Ukraine trade. INTRODUCTION. Robert Z. Lawrenceisa nonresident seniorfellow at the PetersonInstitute for InternationalEconomics and the AlbertL. Williams Professor ofInternational Trade andInvestment at HarvardKennedy School. 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,significant increases in additional capital formation are essential if Ukraine isto emulate the post-Soviet growth trajectories of countries like Poland and theCzech Republic as well as reintegrate its millions of displaced expatriates. Sergii Telenykholdsa Master’s in PublicAdministration fromHarvard Kennedy Schooland is an LL.M. candidateat New York UniversitySchool of Law. 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 companiesthat decide to build new factories, households that invest in housing and skills,Ukrainian expats who return and participate in rebuilding their nation, foreigninvestors that establish supply chains, and insurers and lenders that agree tobinding long-term contracts. These decisions all hinge on trust and credibility. 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 willremain skeptical about their sustainability and concerned about the risks ofrenewed hostilities. 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 internationallegal frameworks, such agreements can raise the political and reputationalcosts of policy reversal, strengthen reform-oriented domestic coalitions, shapeexpectations about long-term economic policy stability and increase thecredibility of security commitments. 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-runreconstruction strategy. Ukraine’s Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area(DCFTA) agreement with the European Union entails far-reaching regulatoryalignment.2.Ukraine has also been granted EU candidate status, but to become afull-fledged EU member it must make a complex set of reforms. Moreover, everychapter of the reform agenda must be unanimously approved by EU members.Meeting these demanding requirements could delay its membership for adecade or more. 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-called Turnberry) deal between the European Union and the United States, thismight have led to major inconsistencies between the EU common tariff rates anda US-Ukraine FTA. However, in the July agreement the European Union agreed toeliminate its tariffs on all US industrial products. Under this treatment, therefore,only nonindustrial products that accounted for just 8.6 percent of Ukrainianimports from the United States might require special treatment in a US-UkraineFTA to achieve compatibility.3. It should be noted, however, that the US Supreme Court in February 2026struck down President Donald Trump’s tariffs that he used as leverage inobtaining the US-EU agreement. The court’s ruling cast