Subsidies are among the most prevalent government measures to support the domestic economy. This chapter argues that the WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (ASCM), while regulating trade distortions caused by subsidies, is largely agnostic of how subsidies can also help address important twenty-first century challenges. These include policy goals like the green transition, economic recovery, and research and development support. First, we outline existing trends in countries’ resort to subsidies against the backdrop of WTO rules. Second, we explain why and how PTAs are a powerful instrument to address the ‘focal point shift’ from the alleviation of trade distortions to the promotion of public goods in subsidies regulation, also considering global value chains (GVCs) dynamics. Our approach balances regulation of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ subsidies, placing emphasis on the former, while being wary of new forms of distortive industrial subsidies. Third, we examine subsidy-related norms currently escaping multilateral rules and make a case for their inclusion into PTAs. We conclude that PTAs’ flexibilities make them best-suited for future-proof subsidies regulation and innovation in WTO agenda.