During the past dozen years, the U.S. has been actively promoting the incorporation of the principleof competitive neutrality into the 21st century trade and investment agreements. However, the term commercialconsiderations", instead of competitive neutrality", is frequently used in the final text of the SOE chaptersof the new- generation FTAs led by the U.S. Why? This paper investigates the evolution and practice of theprinciple of commercial considerations in multilateral, regional and domestic trade rules and reaches thefollowing conclusions. First, the principle of commercial considerations was used by the U.S. at the launch ofthe multilateral trading system for the participation of SOE-dominated countries, and has been developed in theGATT/WTO and the FTAs initiated by the U.S. in the 1980s and 1990s. Second, the principles of competitiveneutrality and commercial considerations have an identical core; the rationale and methodology of the formerto redress domestic SOEs' competitive advantage due to their public ownership are the same as those ofcountervailing rules based on the commercial considerations.