A few hours ago, President Donald Trump issued his long-awaited announcement regarding a new tariff system for imports into the United States. The system includes an emphasis on "non-monetary barriers" that compel the U.S. federal government to assess higher tariff rates against certain countries.
The three examples of "non-monetary" barriers that Trump emphasized were currency manipulation, unfair tax policy, and the use of sweatshop labor.
Sweatshop labor is a very obvious example of a social sustainability factor. Unfair tax policy is defined as an economic sustainability factor by sustainability standards organizations like the GRI. Only currency manipulation generally falls outside of most definitions of sustainability and resilience.
Sustainability accountants will obviously be needed to measure the performance of importers to assess whether nations, or specific companies within nations, are meeting or avoiding these threshold definitions of "non-monetary barriers."
President Trump has never described himself as a proponent of sustainability accounting. Given the need for metrics that define the parameters of "non-monetary barriers," though, he may agree that sustainability accounting will play an important role in the nation's new tariff system.