A new bill, titled the Americas Act wants to bring U.S. supply chains home from China. But its cosponsors, who include Sens. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), along with Reps Adriana Espaillat (D-N.Y.) and Maria Salazar (R-Fla.), have concocted a legislative mess that wouldn’t do anything to achieve their stated goal.

Using assorted financial incentives, the bill’s cosponsors hope to entice American companies to “re-shore” their operations back home, or “near-shore” them to countries like Costa Rica and Uruguay. These and other eligible “Americas partner countries” would be invited to join the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) so that their firms can export more cheaply to the U.S. than Chinese suppliers can.

But there’s a problem. To work, the bill would require the U.S. to renegotiate its tariff limits, or “bound” rates, at the World Trade Organization. That’s because these rates aren’t much higher than USMCA’s zero tariffs and don’t burden exporters with costly rules of origin, which can erase the value of a preferential duty.

The point is that, unless U.S.-bound rates are redone, USMCA’s preferences are probably not worth the candle.

The bill’s cosponsors plan to use Article 28 of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade to get the job done. This isn’t going to happen. The U.S. would have to........

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