Not a trade agreement, but a US ‘Dictat’: economists Anu Muhammad

TBM Report

Prominent economist and public intellectual Professor Anu Muhammad has vehemently denounced the recently concluded bilateral trade agreement between Bangladesh and the United States, characterizing it not as a standard trade pact, but as an asymmetric “dictat” (hukumnama) engineered by the US administration. Speaking at a round-table conference titled “US-Bangladesh Trade Pact: Threats to National Economy, Security, and Sovereignty” held at the National Press Club on Wednesday, Professor Muhammad asserted that the agreement bypasses conventional World Trade Organization (WTO) guidelines, unilaterally forcing Bangladesh into acquiring expensive US commodities under the pretext of trade deficit corrections, a move he classified as entirely economically irrational.

Corroborating the strategic anxieties, Professor Mustafizur Rahman, Distinguished Fellow at the Center for Policy Dialogue (CPD), revealed critical chronological discrepancies that undermine the core rationale of the treaty. Rahman disclosed that the interim administration rushed into signing the treaty on February 9, just three days prior to the national elections, to escape specific punitive tariffs. Paradoxically, on February 20—merely eleven days post-signing—a US federal court struck down those very tariffs. “Had the administration delayed the procedure by less than two weeks, this highly damaging and coercive sovereign commitment would have been completely redundant,” Professor Rahman noted, calling for an immediate diplomatic rescission of the pact.

Delivering a mathematical breakdown of the institutional damage to the Ready-Made Garments (RMG) sector, the CPD fellow warned that while Bangladeshi apparel currently faces a 16% standard tariff in US ports, the implementation of this agreement would add an extra 19% structural tariff alongside a 10% penalty duty framed under “forced labor” compliance clauses. This effectively aggregates to a prohibitive 45% tariff barrier, systematically pricing Bangladeshi exports out of the North American market, while non-signatory competing nations remain completely insulated from such punitive levies. Furthermore, the pact structurally curtails Dhaka’s geopolitical neutrality; a binding sovereignty clause dictates that Bangladesh cannot negotiate a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with any third country, including China, without prior mandatory consultation and formal compliance screening by Washington.