the PRC to eliminate harmful trade practices and act responsibly within the global rules-based trading system. Unfortunately, the PRC has not substantially changed its behavior and has instead used forced labor, subsidies and overproduction, intellectual property theft and the forced transfer of technology, authoritarian digital governance policies, economic coercion, and other unfair practices to advance an economic model that undermines human rights, American industries and workers, and market-based economies around the world. (7) The PRC is now actively seeking to increase trade ties in the Indo-Pacific region as a means to increase its economic influence and increase supply chain dependency on the PRC. One of the most prominent examples of the PRC’s growing economic influence in the Indo-Pacific region is the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which entered into force in January 2022. RCEP is now the largest trade agreement in the world, encompassing 15 countries that account for 30 percent of the global economy. This agreement will increasingly put the United States at a competitive disadvantage as the economies of the PRC, Australia, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam grow more integrated. (8) The PRC is also actively negotiating numerous other regional and bilateral trade agreements throughout the region and is attempting to accede to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) as well as the Digital Economic Partnership Agreement (DEPA). (9) The PRC’s aggressive assertion of its economic interests in the Indo-Pacific through the use of trade agreements underscores the need for the United States to provide a meaningful and credible alternative to achieve our economic and national security goals. (10) American workers and businesses also face competitive pressures as other countries in the region pursue regional rules and preferential trade agreements