bodog sportsbook review|Most Popular_the framework of WTO rules. /blog-topics/managed-trade/ Fri, 19 Aug 2022 18:05:35 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.1 /wp-content/uploads/2018/08/android-chrome-256x256-80x80.png bodog sportsbook review|Most Popular_the framework of WTO rules. /blog-topics/managed-trade/ 32 32 bodog sportsbook review|Most Popular_the framework of WTO rules. /blogs/tariffs-would-create-10m-jobs/ Tue, 16 Aug 2022 17:31:02 +0000 /?post_type=blogs&p=34405 Broad-based tariffs including tariffs on manufactured imports would boost U.S. economy by 7% and create 10 million jobs. Real household incomes rise by 10%. Tariffs reduce imports and stimulate domestic...

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  • Broad-based tariffs including tariffs on manufactured imports would boost U.S. economy by 7% and create 10 million jobs.
  • Real household incomes rise by 10%.
  • Tariffs reduce imports and stimulate domestic manufacturing output by 19%.
  • Tariffs would generate $603 billion in new revenue, enabling cuts in income tax or other taxes.
  • CPA modification of standard trade model allows for pro-growth results from reduced imports

National policy has recently been moving towards industrial strategy to rebuild our industrial base. Tariffs were increased under the Trump administration to the dismay of many who predicted economic disaster which did not materialize. Under Biden, Congress has approved subsidies for semiconductor and solar manufacturing in the CHIPS Act and in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.

As the “Washington Consensus” on trade liberalization frays, new economic analysis is needed to guide decision making in an emerging post-neoliberal era of geopolitical and industrial competition among nations. To this effect, CPA helped develop the Job Quality Index to track the quality of jobs on offer each month, as a supplement to job creation numbers. CPA also developed the Domestic Market Share Index to track the domestic producer share of the U.S. goods market to gauge the competitiveness of our home industries at home.

Trade modeling has often projected economic results from trade liberalization agreements that did not materialize (for further detail, go here). The standard trade model projects gains from trade liberalization and losses from industrial strategies to re-shore industry. But those projections are at odds with the successful growth strategies of Japan, China, South Korea and early America which grew through the use of broad tariffs and other mechanisms to restrict imports and incentivize the local growth of investment and jobs.

CPA has spent the past year analyzing and improving the standard trade model, working with some of the developers of the standard GTAP trade model, to more accurately gauge the impacts of tariff intervention as a growth strategy to create jobs and protect from future supply chain shocks.

The new CPA working paper describes the results of improving the standard trade model, demonstrating the benefits of broad-based tariffs throughout the economy. The model’s results show that comprehensive tariffs would stimulate the U.S. economy and lead to the creation of 10 million new jobs. The tariffs implemented in the model reflect the proposals of the CPA Model Tariff schedule. In our simulation, these tariffs stimulate the domestic manufacturing industry and lead to real gains in domestic employment and income. We found double-digit growth in output in most manufacturing sectors, higher incomes in all industries, and broad-based growth across the entire economy.

The CPA model used for this simulation is a modified version of the standard Global Trade and Analysis Project (GTAP) model. The GTAP trade model was developed at Purdue University in the 1990s and is widely used by academic researchers and federal government agencies to model trade policies. The GTAP model, like other computable general equilibrium models (CGE), often assumes that the total supply of labor, investment and capital in the economy is fixed, limiting the ability for domestic production to rise when trade patterns change. Our modifications to several key parameters change these dynamics by allowing firms to increase their inputs and produce more as imports decline. The tariff effectively raises returns to labor and capital as domestic output in tariffed sectors increases.

 

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The CPA Model Tariff Schedule analyzes the impacts of a 15% revenue tariff increase on all imported goods, as well as a 35% tariff increase on imported goods for economic reasons and their importance to national resilience. While we assume the U.S. imposes the 35% tariffs only on Non-Free Trade Agreement (NFTA) countries, these tariff increases can be imposed globally. For this simulation, The U.S. has Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with 20 countries including Canada and Mexico. Non-FTA countries comprise all other countries, including China and the 27 European Union members. Industries where the U.S. has little domestic production capabilities due to physical limitations (selected minerals) receive a zero percent tariff increase.

Our simulation of the Model Tariff Schedule leads to increases in real GDP (7%) and domestic output (19%). We observe relatively large gains in chemical manufacturing (30%), textiles and clothing (54%), and electrical (52%).

Growth in domestic production requires more workers. The economy adds 9.9 million workers, including 3 million additional workers in manufacturing and 6.9 million in service sectors. Although the growth in output is led by manufacturing sectors, higher employment in the service sector supports the expanding manufacturing sector and incomes. For example, our simulation shows strong growth in health care and government employment. See Table 1 for further details of simulation results.

Tariff revenue rises sixfold to reach $696 billion a year. This is far more revenue than corporate taxation currently generates for the U.S. Treasury. In this Model Tariff scenario, the federal government could abolish corporate taxation outright or cut personal income taxes by 25%. In our simulation, we turn the $603 billion gain in tax revenue into household and business income to avoid the deflationary effect of the government absorbing more funds.

 

Table 1: Main Results

Indicator Actual, 2021 Post-Shock Change Change
Billions Billions % Billions
Real GDP $22,996 $24,523 6.6% $1,527
Private Consumption $15,742 $18,990 20.6% $3,248
Gov Consumption $4,053 $4,891 20.7% $838
Investment $4,120 $4,948 20.1% $828
Total Tax Revenue $4,626 $5,580 20.6% $955
Employment (Millions) 155.2 165.1 6.4 9.9
Tariff Revenue $93 $696 651.0% $603
Imports $3,397 $3,154 -7.1% -$243
Exports $2,478 $2,163 -12.7% -$315
 

Source: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Figures reported here scale 2014 simulated results to 2021 data.

*All data in billions USD except Employment

 

The trade balance changes very little as both imports and exports fall. This result may seem unintuitive with a 35% tariff. While imports fall as the tariff makes imported goods more expensive, the GTAP model has several inbuilt dynamics that drive exports down. Export goods become relatively more expensive as the tariffs raise many input prices. Further, the model stipulates real exchange rate appreciation (a higher value for the dollar) as imports fall. In future studies of the economic impact of tariffs, we will attempt to explore alternative scenarios for exports. Lastly, lower imports will divert exports to domestic consumption, causing a reduction in exports However, the model’s implication that a comprehensive trade policy must include exchange rate regime management is valid.

 

Model Modifications

We added three main elements to the standard GTAP model to reflect a more realistic response to a tariff. First, we add new supply elasticities for factors of production (i.e. land, labor, capital) so that inputs and therefore output could increase in response to a trade shock–such as a tariff. The standard GTAP model does not allow for these changes in economy-wide supply, making the economy unrealistically rigid.

The second modification was to the Armington elasticities. These elasticities affect how purchasers react to the price differences between domestic goods and imports. These elasticities were modified to reflect a more realistic fall in exports and imports in the GTAP model from the tariffs. The GTAP model assumes markets are competitive and export volumes will respond strongly to any increase in the price of exports. That logic is based on the assumption of perfect competition across markets. There is evidence that U.S. exports of manufactured goods are concentrated in oligopolistic markets where prices will have less impact on volumes.  We therefore modified those elasticities to reflect a more realistic response of trade quantities to price changes.

Lastly, we modified the model to return the gain in tax revenue back to consumers and producers. This adds further stimulus to GDP as it helps firms invest in production and gives consumers more spending power. This is a minor stimulus by comparison to the effects of the tariff changes.

 

Conclusion

Our simulation of the Model Tariff Schedule shows that tariffs on manufactured goods would deliver broad-based benefits to output, employment, and household incomes. Our changes to the standard GTAP model address some of the unrealistic rigidities built into the model. Further work is needed to strengthen the model to more accurately reflect a global response to trade policies.

 

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bodog sportsbook review|Most Popular_the framework of WTO rules. /blogs/us-and-managed-trade/ Sat, 22 Jan 2022 20:04:39 +0000 /?post_type=blogs&p=32453 Allies for more than a century, now jointly facing Russian and Chinese threats, the U.S. and U.K. are nevertheless squabbling over the steel trade. Resolution will likely lead the U.S. further down...

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Allies for more than a century, now jointly facing Russian and Chinese threats, the U.S. and U.K. are nevertheless squabbling over the steel trade. Resolution will likely lead the U.S. further down the troublesome path of managed trade. 

The dispute started in 2018 when President Donald Trump and his obliging secretary of commerce, Wilbur Ross, invoked Section 232 of the Trade Act of 1963, to issue an amazing finding: Steel and aluminum imports not only from NATO allies, but also from Asian allies Japan and Korea, threatened U.S. national security. In March 2018, to redress the imagined threat, Trump slapped a 25% import tariff on steel and a 10% tariff on aluminum. Since steel and aluminum are easily stockpiled, since U.S. military needs are in any event supplied from domestic mills, and since the Pentagon saw no need for protection, national security tariffs made no sense then or now. 

But Section 232 offered a lifeline to President Trump and his protectionist acolyte, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. U.S. courts predictably defer to presidents who murmur “national security,” while World Trade Organization rules contain a national security exception. Since legal relief was not to be found, the European Union imposed retaliatory tariffs on $3 billion of iconic U.S. exports, including Harley Davidson motorcycles and Kentucky bourbon, and scheduled another $4 billion of tariff coverage to take effect at the end of 2021 in the absence of a deal. As the U.K. was then a EU member, it was hit by the Section 232 tariffs and fully participated in EU retaliation. 

Candidate Joe Biden opposed nearly everything President Trump supported, but he took a shine to trade protection. Progressive Democrats, led by Sens. Sanders and Warren, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s congressional “squad,” and AFL-CIO allies, view free trade as the handiwork of Wall Street and the Chamber of Commerce. Despite abundant evidence, progressives see no benefit from international commerce to American households or workers. President Biden was not about to incur progressive wrath by repealing steel tariffs when he took office. Even though steel prices soared, it was not until October 2021 that Biden crafted a complex deal with the EU to replace steel and aluminum tariffs with so-called tariff-rate quotas specific to individual member countries. With their initial complexity and subsequent tinkering, TRQs are the mother of managed trade. Government officials, not market forces, determine outcomes, invariably accompanied by inefficiency and often corruption. 

U.S.-EU TRQs will limit the volume of U.S. imports to pre-2018 levels, but on that volume the U.S. collects no tariffs. Instead, EU steel exporters gain duty-free access for exports of 4.4 million metric tons to the U.S. market (which totals about 100 million tons), where some prices fetch 70% above EU levels. Because the TRQs confine U.S. imports to historic levels, they do nothing to lower inflated prices. A sweet deal for European producers, but no relief for American consumers or U.S. firms that use steel in thousands of products, from buildings and bridges to bicycles and bumpers. In fact, the TRQ deal saps the ability of U.S. steel-using firms to compete in global markets. 

One of the many penalties the U.K. incurred when it left the EU was relief from U.S. steel tariffs through the EU deal. Before the Trump tariffs, the U.K. exported around 0.4 million metric tons of steel to the U.S. and very little aluminum. British steel producers understandably want duty-free access to the U.S. market on the sweetheart terms now enjoyed by their European competitors. Biden appears well-disposed to managed trade because of its short-term bodog poker review diplomatic payoff and its appeal to protected U.S. firms. He is probably willing to do a TRQ deal that does not increase the volume of U.S. steel imports. Alas, the Irish question has intruded on trans-Atlantic harmony. 

British officials earnestly proclaim that steel talks are entirely separate from Northern Ireland, but key congressional members beg to differ. They fear that Prime Minister Boris Johnson may blow up the EU-U.K. accord that essentially keeps Northern Ireland within EU customs territory, thereby averting a contentious land border with the Irish Republic but dividing the United Kingdom into two economic zones. This standoff precludes a steel deal until the U.K. and the EU finally conclude their divorce agreement and settle Northern Ireland’s status. When that happens, at U.S.-U.K. TRQ seems almost inevitable, another stitch in the fabric of managed trade. 

By mid-2019, South Korea, Brazil, Argentina, Canada, and Mexico had reached steel and aluminum quota agreements with Lighthizer, establishing the foundations of managed trade. Now that the U.S.-EU deal has been reached, and a U.S.-U.K. deal is in the air, other countries will predictably join. Even China may sign up. The system of managed steel trade created by Trump and Biden echoes the system of managed textile trade launched by Eisenhower and Kennedy in the late 1950s and early 1960s. That monstrosity grew over the next four decades, at enormous cost to consumers, but ensuring full employment for trade officials. Global commerce in steel and aluminum now travels the same ill-fated path.

Gary Clyde Hufbauer is a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics

To read the full commentary by Barron’s, please click here. 

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bodog sportsbook review|Most Popular_the framework of WTO rules. /blogs/vaccine-supply-indicates-trade/ Tue, 10 Aug 2021 18:30:41 +0000 /?post_type=blogs&p=29794 For many of us, Chad Bown of the Peterson Institute for International Economics — a boutique think tank specializing in, duh, international economics — has become the go-to guy for...

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For many of us, Chad Bown of the Peterson Institute for International Economics — a boutique think tank specializing in, duh, international economics — has become the go-to guy for current developments in trade policy. His work tracking the evolution of Donald Trump’s trade war was invaluable.Now he has a highly informative new paper with Thomas Bollyky on the vaccine supply chain. I won’t lie: There’s a lot of detail, and the paper is fairly heavy going. But it’s full of useful details, and it also, I’d argue, tells us some interesting things about the nature of world trade in the 21st century.One thing that caught my eye — probably not the most important thing, but one close to my heart — is that the story of global vaccine production demonstrates the continuing relevance of the so-called New Trade Theory, or as some now call it, the “old New Trade Theory.”

The shots made round the world.

Producing these vaccines is evidently a complicated process, involving facilities in many locations, presumably implying a lot of cross-border shipments of vaccine ingredients. Notably, in Pfizer’s case all these facilities are in the United States and Western Europe, which is typical across pharma firms, although other companies have a few facilities in Brazil and India.So where do vaccine supply chains fit into the theory of international trade?If you’ve ever taken an economics course, you probably learned about the theory of comparative advantage, which says that countries trade to take advantage of their differences. The classic original example, from the early-19th-century economist David Ricardo, involved the exchange of English cloth for Portuguese wine.Comparative advantage is a powerful, illuminating theory — especially because it shows why countries export goods they’re relatively good at producing even if they’re less productive in those industries than potential competitors. Bangladesh is a low-productivity nation across the board (although it has been improving), but its productivity disadvantage is less pronounced in apparel than in other industries, so it has become a major clothing exporter.In the 1960s and 1970s, however, a number of economists began suggesting that comparative advantage was an incomplete story. World trade had been growing over time, but much of that growth involved trade between countries that didn’t seem very different — the United States and Canada, for example, or the nations of Western Europe. Furthermore, what these countries were selling to each other looked pretty similar: There was a lot of “intra-industry” trade like the large-scale, two-way trade in autos and related goods across the U.S.-Canada border.

 

What was going on? A few economists had long noted that comparative advantage wasn’t the only possible reason for international trade. Countries might also trade because production of some goods involves increasing returns — there are advantages to large-scale production, which creates an incentive to concentrate production in a few countries and export those goods to other countries. Automotive trade between the United States and Canada was a classic example: After the countries established a free-trade agreement for autos in 1965, North American car companies achieved economies of scale by limiting the range of items produced in Canada, exporting these goods and importing other items from the United States.But if trade reflected increasing returns rather than country characteristics, which countries would end up producing which goods? It might be largely random, the result of accidents of history.There was, however, remarkably little economic literature on increasing-returns trade until the late 1970s. Economists don’t like to talk about stuff they find hard to model, and trade models with increasing returns tended to be messy and confusing. Eventually, however, some economists came up with clever ways to cut through the confusion, in papers like this 1980 piece in the American Economic Review:

 

 
 

 


God, I was young! Anyway, history has a sense of humor. No sooner had economists come up with nifty models of trade between similar countries, driven by economies of scale, than the world economy took a hard turn away from that kind of trade toward trade between dissimilar countries driven by things like large differences in wages.World trade exploded from the mid-1980s until around 2008, a process sometimes called hyperglobalization:

 

Globalization gets hyper.

 

And where trade growth in the ’60s and ’70s had largely involved advanced economies selling stuff to each other, hyperglobalization involved a surge in exports of manufactured goods from relatively low-wage developing countries:

 

Everything old was new again.

 

So we had a New Trade Theory, but the new trade we were actually getting was much better explained by, well, old trade theory.

So what does all this have to do with vaccine supply chains? Well, as I already noted, vaccine ingredients are mainly produced in advanced countries — countries that are very similar in their education levels, overall level of technological competence and more. So why wasn’t each advanced country producing the whole ensemble of vaccine-related inputs? Here’s what Bown and Bollyky say:

“The business model that much of the pharmaceutical industry had shifted toward over the previous 25 years involved fragmentation. As tariffs and other trade barriers had fallen globally, information and communications technology (ICT) developed, shipping and logistics efficiency increased, and protection of intellectual property rights steadily improved. The fact that trade could play a greater role in distributing pharmaceutical products globally meant that companies could operate fewer plants but at a larger scale.” 

Hey, it’s New Trade Theory in action! And it sure looks as if there was a lot of random historical contingency determining national roles in the pattern of specialization. Europe was initially very dependent on Britain’s exports of lipids — but I doubt that there’s something about British culture that makes the country especially good at lipids. It’s just one of those accidents that play a big role in economic geography.Is there a moral to this story? There’s been a lot of backlash against globalization over the past decade, to some extent justified: Advocates of free-trade agreements oversold their benefits and understated the disruptions they might cause. But the case of vaccine production illustrates a positive side of globalization we tend to forget. These miracle vaccines are incredibly complex products that would have been hard to develop and produce in any one country, even one as large as the United States. A global market made it possible to deliver all the specialized inputs that are saving thousands of lives as you read this.

Paul Krugman joined The New York Times in 2000 as an Op-Ed columnist. He is distinguished professor in the Graduate Center Economics Ph.D. program and distinguished scholar at the Luxembourg Income Study Center at the City University of New York. In addition, he is professor emeritus at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs

To read the full commentary from The New York Times, please click here

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bodog sportsbook review|Most Popular_the framework of WTO rules. /blogs/renegotiation-fta-eu-mexico/ Tue, 10 Aug 2021 18:20:50 +0000 /?post_type=blogs&p=29792 To end neoliberalism and defend energy resources, the present government of Andres Manuel López Obrador must step up and avoid at all costs the inclusion of supranational arbitration mechanisms in...

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To end neoliberalism and defend energy resources, the present government of Andres Manuel López Obrador must step up and avoid at all costs the inclusion of supranational arbitration mechanisms in a renegotiated FTA with the European Union (EU-Mexico FTA), and ensure that European transnational corporations are made accountable for human rights violations in Mexico.

Since president Salinas de Gortari in the early nineties, Mexican governments have adopted a neoliberal approach to international trade and given away our legal sovereignty to transnational corporations by signing free trade agreements such as NAFTA (now the USMCA)  and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). To end neoliberalism and defend energy resources, the present government of Andres Manuel López Obrador must step up and avoid at all costs the inclusion of supranational arbitration mechanisms in a renegotiated FTA with the European Union (EU-Mexico FTA), and ensure that European transnational corporations are made accountable for human rights violations in Mexico.

As discussed in “Unmasked: Corporate Rights in the Renewed Mexico-EU FTA”, several European companies have a long history of human rights and environmental violations in Mexico, such as Spain’s wind energy enterprise Union Fenosa in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, or water grabbing companies like Aguas de Barcelona in the state of Coahuila. Recently, the human rights organization ProDESC published the report “Vigilance Switched Off” with European partners, documenting how France has turned a blind eye to Électricité de France (EDF) wind energy project–a company 83%-owned by the French state–and its widespread human rights violations of indigenous peoples in Unión Hidalgo.

“Modernizing” the EU-Mexico FTA falls short of addressing these serious deficiencies and is nothing but a euphemism for increasing investor rights. The main aim of the so-called “modernization” is the inclusion of a chapter on investment protection, with an investor-state dispute settlement mechanism (ISDS), which would overcome the fact that disputes until now could only be filed and settled under bilateral investment treaties – namely the ones signed by Mexico with 15 European countries.

It is worth noting that the EU-Mexico FTA has already brought negative consequences for Mexico in terms of trade. Per my own calculations based on data from the Ministry of Economy, Mexico’s trade deficit with the European Union reached an accumulated total of US$404,679 million since the FTA entered into force in 2000. A chapter on investment protection would potentially deepen the burden, increasing the danger of multi-million dollar awards adding up as a result of ISDS lawsuits against the State by companies from the oil, gas, energy and other sectors.  

As the Transnational Institute has documented, the Investment Court System that the EU created and intends to impose on Mexico will accentuate the imbalance between binding rights for large corporations and merely voluntary guidelines on human rights (hard law vs soft law). The current Global Agreement contained in the EU-Mexico FTA includes a democratic clause that would have allowed the suspension of the accord due to recurrent human rights infringements. But for more than 20 years since the agreement’s implementation, these violations have been ignored by both the EU and Mexico, turning the  democracy clause into a merely decorative feature. If Mexico and the EU are serious about modernizing their relationship, they should focus on correcting this imbalance that favors transnational corporations. They specifically should refrain from granting companies the right to resort to secret supranational tribunals which are primarily designed to benefit their interests and extend their privileges, such as the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).

It is important to take into account that the USMCA (or NAFTA 2.0) “legacy clause” allows corporations to file suits bodog online casino against countries under NAFTA’s chapter 11 for three additional years after NAFTA’s termination, whereas “investment protection” between Mexico and the United States under USMCA will be restricted to public contracts signed by governments with companies in the energy, oil and gas, infrastructure and telecommunications sectors. This is why law firms like Baker McKenzie recommend that U.S. companies in other sectors use other international investment treaties to sue Mexico. A revamped pro-investor EU-Mexico FTA could well be their preferred instrument in the future.

This phenomenon of “treaty shopping” has been common place under the ISDS regime. Transnational corporations only need to open a postal address–The Netherlands being a paradise for these–to avoid taxes and hold all the necessary tools to sue a country with the investment treaty that best fits their purpose. 

In addition to preventing foreign corporations from resorting to supranational tribunals, the Mexican government must exclude the “indirect expropriation” clause from the EU-Mexico FTA, which would grant companies the right to demand “compensation” for the loss of expected profits, even for investments that have not been made. In 2013 for example, Mexico was forced to pay US$40.3 million to Abengoa after that the municipality of Zimapán in the State of Hidalgo legitimately denied the Spanish company a license to establish a hazardous waste deposit, a little more than a mile away from a natural reserve and less than half a kilometer from the Hñahñü indigenous community. 

To deal with all these risks and ensure human rights are fully protected and prevail over transnational corporations’ privileges–including economic, social, cultural and environmental rights–the government of AMLO must secure the broad participation of social sectors and affected communities in the renegotiation of the FTA with the EU. The time has come to put an end to the inertia and bias of previous governments negotiating behind people’s backs. 

Manuel Pérez Rocha is an Associate Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies, and regular contributor to TNI’s Alternative Regionalisms programme who has been associated with TNI since 1996 when he began work on EU-Latin America relations.

To read the full commentary from The Transnational Institute (TNI), please click here

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bodog sportsbook review|Most Popular_the framework of WTO rules. /blogs/pandemic-current-account-balance/ Mon, 02 Aug 2021 18:16:34 +0000 /?post_type=blogs&p=29510 2020 was a year of extremes. Travel all but ceased for a period. Oil prices wildly fluctuated. Trade in medical products reached new heights. Household spending shifted to consumer goods...

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2020 was a year of extremes. Travel all but ceased for a period. Oil prices wildly fluctuated. Trade in medical products reached new heights. Household spending shifted to consumer goods rather than services and savings ballooned as people stayed home amid a global shutdown.

Exceptional policy support prevented a global economic depression, even as the pandemic took a heavy toll on lives and livelihoods. The global reaction, as seen in major shifts in travel, consumption, and trade, also made the world a more economically imbalanced place as reflected in current account balances—a record of a country’s transactions with the rest of the world.

In our latest External Sector Report we found that the global reaction to the pandemic further widened global current account balances—the sum of absolute deficits and surpluses among all countries—from 2.8 percent of world GDP in 2019 to 3.2 percent of GDP in 2020. Those balances are set to widen further as the pandemic continues to rage in much of the world.

If not for the crisis, global current account balances would have continued to decline. While external deficits and surpluses are not necessarily a cause for concern, excessive imbalances—larger than warranted by the economy’s fundamentals and appropriate economic policies—can have destabilizing effects on economies by fueling trade tensions and increasing the likelihood of disruptive asset price adjustments.

A year like no other

The dramatic fluctuations in current account deficits and surpluses in 2020 were driven by four major pandemic-fueled trends:

  • Travel declined: The pandemic led to a sharp decrease in tourism and travel. This had a significant negative impact on the account balances of countries that rely on tourism revenue, such as Spain, Thailand, Turkey, and even larger consequences for smaller tourism-dependent economies.
  • Oil demand collapsed: The collapse in oil demand and energy prices was relatively short lived, with oil prices recovering in the second half of 2020. However, oil-exporting economies, such as Saudi Arabia and Russia, saw current account balances decline sharply in 2020. Oil-importing countries saw corresponding increases to their oil trade balances.
  • Medical products trade boomed: Demand surged by about 30 percent for medical supplies critical for fighting the pandemic, such as personal protective equipment, as well as the inputs and materials to make them, with implications for importers and exporters of these items.
  • Household consumption shifted: As people were forced to stay home, households shifted their consumption away from services toward consumer goods. This happened most in advanced economies where there was an increase in the purchase of durable goods like electrical appliances used to accommodate teleworking and virtual learning.

All of these factors contributed to some countries seeing a wider current account deficit, meaning they bought more than they sold, or a larger current account surplus, meaning they sold more than they bought. Favorable global financial conditions, with the unprecedented monetary policy support from major central banks, made it easier for countries to finance wider current account deficits. In contrast, during past crises where financial conditions sharply tightened, running current account deficits was harder, pushing countries further into recession.

On top of these external factors, the pandemic led to massive government borrowing to finance health care and provide economic support to households and firms, creating large uneven effects on trade balances.

The outlook

Global current account balances are set to widen even further in 2021 but this trend is not expected to last. The latest IMF staff forecasts indicate that global current account balances will narrow in the coming years, as China’s surplus and the US’ deficit falls, reaching 2.5 percent of world GDP by 2026.

A reduction in balances could be delayed if large deficit economies like the US undertake additional fiscal expansions or there is a faster-than-expected fiscal adjustment in current account surplus countries, like Germany. A resurgence of the pandemic and a tightening of global financial conditions that disrupt the flow of capital to emerging markets and developing economies could also affect balances.

Despite the shock of the crisis and possibly due to its worldwide impact, excessive current account deficits and surpluses were broadly unchanged in 2020, representing about 1.2 percent of world GDP. Most of the drivers of excess external imbalances pre-date the pandemic and include fiscal imbalances as well as structural and competitiveness distortions.

Rebalancing the world economy

Ending the pandemic for everyone in the world is the only way to ensure a global economic recovery that prevents further divergence. This will require a global effort to help countries secure financing for vaccinations and maintain healthcare.

A synchronized global investment push or a synchronized health spending push to end the pandemic and support the recovery could have large effects on world growth without raising global balances.

Governments should step up efforts to resolve trade and technology tensions and modernize international taxation. A top priority should be the phasing out of tariff and non-tariff barriers, especially on medical products.

Countries with excess current account deficits should, where appropriate, seek to reduce budget deficits over the medium term and make competitiveness-raising reforms, including in education and innovation policies. In economies with excess current account surpluses and remaining fiscal space, policies should support the recovery and medium-term growth, including through greater public investment.

In the years to come, countries will need to simultaneously rebalance, while ensuring that the recovery is built on a solid and durable foundation.

To read the full commentary from IMF Blogs, please click here

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bodog sportsbook review|Most Popular_the framework of WTO rules. /blogs/unrest-economic-underperformance/ Sat, 31 Jul 2021 18:36:50 +0000 /?post_type=blogs&p=29797 This wave of unrest and authoritarianism partly reflects covid-19, which has exposed and exploited vulnerabilities, from rotten bureaucracies to frayed social safety-nets. And as we explain this week, the despair...

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This wave of unrest and authoritarianism partly reflects covid-19, which has exposed and exploited vulnerabilities, from rotten bureaucracies to frayed social safety-nets. And as we explain this week, the despair and chaos threaten to exacerbate a profound economic problem: many poor and middle-income countries are losing the knack of catching up with the richest ones.

Our excess-mortality model suggests that 8m-16m people have died in the pandemic. The central estimate is 14m. The developing world is vulnerable to the virus, especially lower-middle-income countries where remote working is rare and plenty of people are fat and old. If you strip out China, non-rich countries have 68% of the world’s population but 87% of its deaths. Only 5% of those aged over 12 are fully vaccinated.

Alongside the human cost is an economic bill, since emerging markets have less room to spend their way out of trouble. Medium-term gdp forecasts for all emerging economies are in aggregate 5% lower than before the virus struck. People are angry and, even though protesting during a pandemic is risky, violent demonstrations around the world are more common than at any time since 2008.

Rich places, such as America and Britain, are no strangers to incompetence and turmoil. But disappointment has hit emerging economies especially hard. In the early 2000s they buzzed with talk of “catch-up”: the idea that poorer countries could prosper by absorbing foreign technology, investing in manufacturing and opening up their economies to trade, as a handful of East Asian tiger economies had done a generation earlier. Wall Street coined the term brics to celebrate Brazil, Russia, India and China—the world economy’s new superstars.

For a while, catch-up worked. The proportion of countries where the level of economic output per head was growing faster than in America rose from 34% in the 1980s to 82% in the 2000s. The implications were momentous. Poverty fell. Multinational companies pivoted away from the boring old West. In geopolitics catch-up promised a new multipolar world in which power was more evenly distributed.

This golden age now looks as if it has come to a premature end. In the 2010s the share of countries catching up fell to 59%. China has defied many doomsayers and there have been quieter Asian success stories such as Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia. But Brazil and Russia have let down the brics and, as a whole, Latin America, the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa are falling further behind the rich world. Even emerging Asia is catching up more slowly than it was.

Bad luck has played a part. The commodity boom of the 2000s fizzled out, global trade stagnated after the financial crisis and bouts of exchange-rate turbulence caused turmoil. But so has complacency as countries have come to think that fast growth was preordained. In many places basic services such as education and health care have been neglected. Crippling problems have been left unfixed, including South Africa’s idle power plants, India’s rotten banks and Russia’s corruption. Instead of defending liberal institutions, such as central banks and the courts, politicians have used them for their own gain.

What happens next? One risk is an emerging-market economic crisis as interest rates in America rise. Fortunately most emerging economies are less brittle than they were, because they have floating exchange rates and rely less on foreign-currency debt. Long-running political crises are a bigger worry. Research suggests that protests suppress the economy, which leads to further discontent—and that the effect is more marked in emerging markets.

Even if emerging economies avoid chaos, the legacy of covid-19 and rising protectionism could condemn them to a long period of slower growth. Many of their people will remain unvaccinated until well into 2022. Long-term productivity could be lowered as a result of so many children having missed school.

Trade may also become harder. China is turning inward, away from the broadly open policies that made it richer. If that continues, China will never be the vast source of consumer demand for the poor world that America has been for China in recent decades.

The West’s increasing protectionism will also limit export opportunities for foreign producers which, in any case, will be less advantageous as manufacturing becomes less labour-intensive. Unfortunately, rich countries are unlikely to make up for it by liberalising trade in services, which would open up other paths to growth. And they may fail to help exposed economies bodog sportsbook review such as Bangladesh—a success story—adapt to climate change.

Faced with this grim landscape, emerging markets may themselves be tempted to abandon open trade and investment. That would be a grave error. An unforgiving global environment makes it even more important for them to stick to policies that work. Turkey’s notion that raising interest rates causes inflation has been disastrous; Venezuela’s pursuit of socialism has been ruinous; and banning foreign firms from adding customers, as India just has with Mastercard, is self-defeating. When catching up is hard, those emerging markets which stay open will have the best chance.

Catch up, don’t give up

Some rules have changed: universal access to digital technologies is now vital, as is an adequate social safety-net. But the principles of how to get rich remain the same today as they ever were. Stay open to trade, compete in global markets and invest in infrastructure and education. Before the liberal reforms of recent decades, economies were diverging. There is time yet to avoid a return to the needless hardship of old.

To read the full commentary from The Economist, please click here

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bodog sportsbook review|Most Popular_the framework of WTO rules. /blogs/joint-statement-initiatives-wto/ Fri, 21 May 2021 15:30:11 +0000 /?post_type=blogs&p=28250 “Joint Statement Initiatives” (JSIs) are today seen by many governments as crucial to making trade progress, given some WTO Members’ opposition to further liberalization and rulemaking on a multilateral basis....

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“Joint Statement Initiatives” (JSIs) are today seen by many governments as crucial to making trade progress, given some WTO Members’ opposition to further liberalization and rulemaking on a multilateral basis. Two governments that have actively worked to stymie progress, India and South Africa, are currently challenging the legality of JSIs within the multilateral system of the WTO in a new bid to prevent other WTO Members from moving forward on the trade front.

This article briefly recounts the history of progressive multilateral liberalization and makes the argument that JSIs, far from being alien to the system, reflect the way progress has historically been made.

Anyone who knows the history of the multilateral trading system of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) was not surprised by the failure of the Doha Round.  A critical mistake was made when it was decided that the outcomes of the Doha Round should be decided by consensus and that all Members should be bound by those outcomes (the “single undertaking” approach).  Trying to make progress on this basis was bound to fail and it also reflected a misunderstanding of the origins of the Uruguay Round’s “single undertaking”.

When one revisits the Punta del Este Declaration that launched the Uruguay Round negotiations, it’s clear that there were a number of subjects, such as trade in services and protection of intellectual property rights, listed for negotiation where it was never expected that all of the Contracting Parties would participate in the negotiations and be bound by the outcomes.  How these outcomes would be implemented was left open for decision at the end of the talks. Technically, the services negotiations were not even under GATT auspices. It was decided that from a timing standpoint, the disparate negotiations should move forward as a “single undertaking”.

Progress in the GATT and WTO has almost never been possible on the basis of all member countries being bound by the same rules. In the 1950s only a limited number of governments undertook to be bound by the export subsidy disciplines of GATT Article XVI:4. The Kennedy Round produced the limited-membership Antidumping Code and the Tokyo Round resulted in a large number of limited-membership agreements that were implemented as “codes”. I would argue that even with their limited membership, the codes represented a big step forward in rule-making for important trade issues.

Bringing the codes into the GATT system was problematic.  Developing countries refused (initially) to have the GATT Secretariat administer the codes of which few of them were members. They blocked agreement and funding for this to happen. This led to a negotiation whereby, in order to get the codes into the system, developed countries agreed to the inclusion in GATT of Part IV – Trade and Development, and in particular the so-called “Enabling Clause” in paragraph 8 of Article XXXVI. The ‘Enabling Clause’ is the basis for special and differential treatment, including non-reciprocity and alower level of commitments from developing countries.  For developed countries, this was the price to pay for bringing the codes into the GATT framework.

It was the creation of a new organization – the WTO – at the end of the Uruguay Round, that made it possible to broaden membership in what had been the limited-membership codes and other agreements resulting from the round.  But it was not the WTO Agreement itself that obliged countries to participate. In reality participation was the result of blackmail by the Quad countries (the USA, European Community, Japan and Canada).  At the end of the Round, the Quad countries quit GATT 1947 and said that any country that did not join the WTO and accept all the agreements’ commitments would lose their MFN access to Quad markets. That is why there is a GATT 1994 and a GATT 1947.  It was the blackmail more than the creation of the WTO that enabled a “single undertaking” approach to WTO membership.

After the advent of the WTO, trade liberalization progress on the “multilateral” front came with limited-membership agreements for telecommunications services, financial services, and information technology products. Generally, these are called “critical mass agreements” because enough of a percentage of global trade was covered that participants were willing to accept some free-riding. Non-participants did not object because they received the benefits of the agreements on an MFN basis.

Fast forward to the post-Doha period where we find ourselves now. Over the past twenty years, all significant trade rule-making and liberalization has taken place in the context of bilateral and plurilateral trade agreements outside of the WTO. WTO rule-making has been frozen in the 1990s while important trade issues have been subject to updated rules in the plurilaterals.

In recent years, some WTO Members have moved to update WTO rules through new “critical mass” agreement efforts called JSIs. JSIs address electronic commerce, services domestic regulation, and investment facilitation.  Certain countries – chief among them India and South Africa – evidently do not want to see progress in these areas and have opposed JSIs. In February 2021, India and South Africa circulated a paper arguing against the “legality” of JSIs (WT/GC/W/819).

There are a number of points made in this paper that I agree with. If a subset of WTO members negotiates an agreement that would modify rules and then want to “add that agreement to Annex 4” or formalize the agreement “into the WTO framework of rules” or bring the results of their agreement “under the umbrella of the WTO”, this cannot be done outside of the accepted framework of WTO rules and decision-making procedures. Related to this, in another part of their paper they correctly suggest that a proposed Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) involves rule-making and therefore would need to be implemented outside the framework of WTO rules. I don’t see a problem here as it was always my understanding that TISA would have been an agreement concluded pursuant to GATS Article V.

Where I disagree with India and South Africa is with some of the things they put forward in the Annex to their paper. For example, I disagree with their assertion that “even changes to schedules cannot be made unilaterally, as other members have the right to protect the existing balance of rights and obligations”. This is true if you want to make your schedule more trade restrictive but not if you unilaterally modify your schedule to make it more liberal. The certification procedure they refer to in connection with the Information Technology Agreement (ITA) was not a negotiation with all other WTO members. The ITA was essentially negotiated as an early JSI only among a subset of members on a critical mass basis.

So, as long as a JSI only involves changes in schedules (making them more liberal) and does not seek to modify WTO rules or bring the resulting agreement into Annex 4, I don’t see any conflict between JSIs and the legality of decision-making in WTO. With Members like India and South Africa blocking progress at the multilateral level in WTO, other Members have no recourse other than to pursue the JSI route, either as critical mass agreements within the WTO framework or where rule-making is involved, outside the WTO as plurilateral agreements.

Progress in the WTO has been scant over the past two decades, with many questioning its continued relevance as they pursue liberalization through bilateral and plurilateral agreements outside the system. In the lead up to WTO’s next Ministerial Conference, it could well be the success or failure of JSIs that determines whether Members will see that WTO has continued relevance.

Andrew Stoler, former WTO Deputy Director-General; former Office of the United States Trade Representative senior trade negotiator; former Executive Director of Institute for International Trade; current advisory board member for European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE) and the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre.

To read the full commentary from the University of Adelaide, please click here.

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bodog sportsbook review|Most Popular_the framework of WTO rules. /blogs/trade-adjustment-worker-centered/ Wed, 31 Mar 2021 14:30:33 +0000 /?post_type=blogs&p=28580 In campaigning for the White House, President Joe Biden argued that “[t]he United States’ ability to be a force for progress in the world and to mobilize collective action starts...

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In campaigning for the White House, President Joe Biden argued that “[t]he United States’ ability to be a force for progress in the world and to mobilize collective action starts at home.” Katherine Tai, his nominee to be the United States Trade Representative, described the Biden administration’s approach as “worker-centered.” “U.S. trade policy,” she said, “must benefit regular Americans, communities and workers.”

Few programs are as central to fulfilling that promise as the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program. In first proposing TAA to Congress in 1962, President Kennedy recognized two truths. First, we as a nation have a responsibility to help our fellow citizens that are harmed by our collective policy choices. Workers, farmers, and businesses invest their time and resources in making themselves competitive within a marketplace that is defined in part by government policies. If the government changes those policies to benefit the nation as a whole, the government must make good, as Billy Joel put it, on “the promises our teachers gave, if we worked hard, if we behaved.”

Second, if the nation does not honor those promises, citizens cannot reasonably be expected to continue to support a policy of trade liberalization. That policy has been an incredible driver of economic growth, both in the United States and abroad. The opening of U.S. markets helped rebuild Europe and Japan after World War II, has lifted millions out of poverty worldwide, and in so doing has been one of the most important human rights policies the United States has ever adopted. But a democratic society cannot ask its citizens to support their own economic demise, or that of their fellows, in the name of the general welfare.

Unfortunately, TAA has largely failed both to vindicate our moral responsibility to our fellow citizens and to shore up support for the larger policy of trade liberalization. For years, union workers have pilloried TAA as “burial insurance.” A 2012 report commissioned by the Labor Department to assess TAA’ performance concluded that, “without considering the benefits of TAA stemming from the possibility that it promotes free trade, the net benefits of the TAA program as it operated under the 2002 amendments were negative.”

With U.S. trade policy at an inflection point, Congress and the Biden Administration have a unique opportunity to remake TAA. The program is currently set to expire this summer, along with Trade Promotion Authority. Congress should take immediate action to reauthorize TAA before it expires. In reauthorizing the program, Congress should take the following steps:

Expand Eligibility and Benefits

TAA has long suffered from limited eligibility criteria and meager benefits. Indeed, no workers or firms were certified as eligible for benefits between the program’s inception in 1962 and 1969. Currently, TAA is available to workers and firms for whom 1) increased imports 2) have “contributed importantly” to both 3) layoffs or the threat thereof and 4) decreased sales or production (a similar program is available to farmers). These criteria create a high bar to establishing eligibility to apply for benefits. Usually, economic distress in a globalized economy of 330 million people does not have a single cause, but rather many interrelated causes: competition from imports; automation both here and overseas; increased input prices; the trade bodog online casino policies of foreign governments; interest rates; and natural disasters, such as hurricanes or wildfires, or public health events like the COVID-19 pandemic, that disrupt production.

Apportioning blame among these causes is often impractical, even where trade is a major contributing factor. Moreover, the complicated eligibility requirements force both the public and private sector to devote resources to navigating bureaucracy, instead of getting help in the hands of those who need it.

Instead, these criteria should be simplified and expanded to reflect how modern trade policy impacts the real economy.

First, applicants for TAA should only have to show that foreign competition is a contributing factor in their economic distress, rather than an “important” factor.

Second, workers, firms, and farmers should be eligible for benefits if exports decline as a result of foreign governments’ trade policy choices. Today, retaliatory tariffs have shuttered foreign markets for many American industries. TAA should recognize and support both our import-competing sectors and our export competing sectors that may be harmed by the United States standing up to unfair foreign practices.

Third, Congress should extend benefits to those whose economic output decreases or fails to increase as a result of competition from imports or retaliatory tariffs overseas. As currently written, benefits are only available upon a finding that output has decreased. This limitation puts TAA out of reach for many workers and firms that may have their opportunities limited by competition with imports.

By way of example, consider a firm that automates part of its assembly line, and thus lays off workers, in order to reduce costs to compete with imports. If the cost savings from automation allow the import-competing firm to maintain its previous levels of production and sales, the laid-off workers would not be eligible for benefits under current law. They are not eligible even though it was pressure from imports that caused their firm to reduce costs and yet still not be able to increase output. In the absence of import competition, the firm might have translated the efficiency gains from automation into increased production, allowing it to keep its employees on staff. TAA’s eligibility criteria should recognize this dynamic.

Apart from eligibility, Congress should increase the benefits available under TAA. The size of those benefits has shrunk in recent years. TAA’s annual appropriations hit $575 million in 2009, the high-water mark for the program, but have declined to $450 million today. Individual benefits are also insufficient to meet the needs of many workers, especially older ones that the 2012 TAA study found have more difficulty transitioning into new lines of work. At a minimum, TAA’s appropriations should be restored to its 2009 high (approximately $700 million adjusted for inflation) and indexed to inflation going forward. Individual benefit caps should be increased, and benefits should become increasingly more generous as workers get older.

Focus on Communities

TAA currently focuses primarily on individuals and firms. But job losses and closures from trade competition hurt more than just the people who lose their jobs. They hurt entire families, communities, towns, and cities. Children may grow up in homes without a stable breadwinner. Minority communities are often disproportionately impacted by the loss of manufacturing jobs. Towns and cities may suffer from brain drain and an eroding tax base as businesses and citizens flee in search of opportunities elsewhere. Those who remain must contend with crumbling infrastructure, a loss of services, and poorer schools. The result is a downward spiral that impacts many more people than just the employees and business owners left without work.

Congress should recognize this reality by expanding TAA to offer aid to trade-impacted communities. Just as with individuals, a community TAA program would require eligibility criteria and the provision of benefits. With respect to the former, the International Trade Commission (ITC) studies the impact of U.S. trade agreements. Congress should expand the ITC’s mandate to require it to evaluate periodically the impact of trade policies on the state, county, and community level, with special attention to historically disadvantaged groups. Pursuant to such studies, the ITC would then certify areas or communities that have suffered significant job losses and economic stagnation as a result of competition with imported goods and services as adversely trade impacted, and thus eligible for TAA Community Benefits.

Those benefits should take the form of investments in the adversely affected “Trade Communities.” Direct spending programs that boost the resilience of the community as a whole will be most effective. For instance, TAA has provided grants to community colleges. This program should be expanded to include grants to primary and secondary schools within the certified communities, as well as to support four-year colleges and research universities whose mission is to give back to their local and regional communities and historically disadvantaged groups.

Supporting families who have had their primary breadwinners laid off means supporting their children throughout their education, not merely once they enter, or are preparing to enter, the workforce. Other similar investments could target education and economic mobility within Trade Communities. For instance, Congress could set the maximum Pell Grant for qualifying students within Trade Communities at 200% of the otherwise applicable maximum. These investments in education would seek to ensure that any harms from trade liberalization do not reach into future generations.

Trade Communities should also be targets for infrastructure investments. These investments could take the form of new programs, such as building public broadband networks that would attract new businesses and provide residents with the means to access a wider range of educational and economic opportunities. Trade communities could also be given preferential access to existing infrastructure programs. For instance, a certain percentage of BUILD (Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development) Transportation Discretionary Grants could be set aside for Trade Communities.

Although new direct spending programs are likely to be more effective at providing assistance, tax credits could also be made available to private investors and businesses who invest in Trade Communities. Examples of such credits could include:

i. Making capital gains tax benefits (under 26 U.S.C. § 1400Z-2) to investors in Opportunity Zones, applicable to investors in Trade Communities;

ii. Providing tax credits to businesses that hire full-time employees previously certified by the Department of Labor as eligible for assistance under TAA;

iii. Making tax credits for qualifying activity in Trade Communities refundable or tradeable to ensure that businesses with already low taxes still have an incentive to invest and operate in Trade Communities.

Tie the Future Reauthorization of TAA to the Renewal of Trade Promotion Authority and Trade Agreements

Historically, U.S. trade agreements are indefinite, while TAA is authorized for only a few years at a time. As a result, proponents of trade liberalization can put each new trade agreement in their pocket and begin negotiating the next round of liberalization, while proponents of adjustment assistance are always negotiating for the entire existence of the program. When these negotiations happen at the same time—when TAA is up for reauthorization at the same time as either a new Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) legislation or implementing legislation for a new trade agreement—TAA does relatively well. But when TAA comes up for reauthorization without a companion bill on trade liberalization, it fares poorly. In fact, on several such occasions TAA has been allowed to lapse completely.

This misalignment between adjustment policies and trade liberalization policies might not be too much to worry about if trade liberalization imposed only temporary shocks to the economy. But research has shown that trade liberalization, especially China’s accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001, has created long-term disruptions in some communities. This makes sense. As fast-growing economies with substantial government support for export-oriented businesses enter new product and services markets, they will create further shocks to our economy. Those further shocks can prevent workers from adjusting to the new environment fast enough to prevent long-term consequences for themselves, their families, and their communities.

Both TAA and TPA will expire on July 1. To address the ongoing shocks from trade liberalization, Congress should reauthorize TAA before it expires. When it does so, Congress has an opportunity to craft pathbreaking legislation permanently linking TAA with the framework for negotiating and authorizing trade agreements. There are two ways to accomplish this. First, any new TPA legislation should be explicitly contingent on TAA legislation that lasts as long as the President’s negotiating authority under TPA.

TPA legislation typically identifies negotiating objectives and procedural requirements for the government to follow in pursuing new trade deals. If the government adheres to Congress’s instructions, Congress considers any resulting agreements under expedited procedures (often called fast-track procedures). Any new TPA legislation should make those fast-track procedures contingent on TAA authorization for the during of the TPA legislation. Doing so would ensure that TAA does not lapse before an opportunity arises to renegotiate TAA and TPA at the same time.

This reform would codify the existing practice of reauthorizing TAA when TPA legislation is up for renewal. But it does not address what happens when both TPA and TAA expire and Congress does not renew TPA. These situations—when there is no appetite for new trade agreements, but there are continuing economic disruptions from past trade agreements—are the ones in which TAA has been allowed to lapse in the past. Indeed, we may be in such a situation this summer. President Biden has said that he is not going to prioritize new agreements, which could cast into doubt the passage of new TPA legislation—and thus TAA legislation—before TAA expires on July 1.

To be clear, TAA should be reauthorized this summer, regardless of whether TPA is also renewed. But to prevent this problem in the future, new TAA legislation should contain a provision that prevents the government from renewing or extending the duration of any existing trade agreements unless Congress has passed legislation authorizing TAA for the same duration. Currently, only USMCA requires renewal. That agreement has a 16-year duration, but it can be renewed as early as six years into that term. TAA authorizations, including the one set to lapse this summer, have often lasted for approximately six years. By tying TAA explicitly to the renewal of USMCA, Congress can thus ensure that it and the President have an incentive to work together to renew TAA on a regular basis going forward. For instance, in TAA legislation passed to reauthorize the program this year,

Congress could provide that the United States shall not approve the extension of USMCA under article 34.7 of that agreement unless Congress has reauthorized TAA for a period of time equal to the period of time for which USMCA would be extended. Doing so would provide motivation for proponents of the market access that USMCA provides to also support trade adjustment measures that ensure that workers benefit from U.S. trade policy as much as consumers and multinational corporations.

Put the U.S. commitment to adjustment assistance at home in our trade agreements, alongside our commitments to trade liberalization and labor and environmental standards abroad

When he took office, President Clinton negotiated the so-called NAFTA Side Agreements on Labor and the Environment, the first labor and environmental provisions in trade agreements. Since then, the United States has remained a leader in connecting trade liberalization to the improvement in our trading partners’ labor and environmental practices. That commitment culminated in amendments to the USMCA to provide for better and more effective enforcement of labor standards.

But as important as labor and environment provisions have been, they still focus on the behavior of U.S. trading partners. They do not directly address the impact of trade on communities within the United States.

The United States should remedy this oversight by inserting an Economic Development Chapter in future U.S. trade agreements. Such a chapter would commit parties to monitoring and reporting on, and taking steps to address, any negative impacts from the agreement’s implementation within their own borders. The chapter would provide governments flexibility in satisfying their commitments, and the revisions to TAA proposed above would satisfy the United States’ obligations. But having the chapter within U.S. bodog online casino trade agreements would put investment in trade-impacted communities at home on par with our commitment to improved labor and environmental standards abroad.

The road to including our commitment to a worker-centric trade policy in U.S. trade agreements begins with the renewal of TPA legislation. Congress should make the inclusion of an Economic Development Chapter a negotiating objective in any new TPA legislation. The result would be that the fast-track procedures through which Congress approves bodog online casino trade agreements would be contingent on the government enshrining its commitment to adjustment assistance in any future trade agreements.

In so doing, it would send a powerful signal that, as President Biden has said, foreign policy begins at home.

To read the full commentary from the American Leadership Initiative (ALI), please click here.

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bodog sportsbook review|Most Popular_the framework of WTO rules. /blogs/united-kingdom-rule-the-waves/ Thu, 14 Jan 2021 20:19:45 +0000 /?post_type=blogs&p=25859 The UK’s dream after Brexit is to become a leader of global free trade and develop an independent foreign policy. How close is Prime Minister Johnson to achieving the launch...

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The UK’s dream after Brexit is to become a leader of global free trade and develop an independent foreign policy. How close is Prime Minister Johnson to achieving the launch of a global Britain?

In the first week of February 2020 at the historic Greenwich museum, Prime Minister Boris Johnson prepared a doubtful nation to set sail for global action. “This is the newly forged United Kingdom on the slipway:  this is the moment when it all took off.”   The Prime Minister (PM) was referring to the early 18th century, when British ships dominated international trade routes, carrying iron rods and porcelain across Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans.  Now, “If we have the courage to follow the instincts and instructions of the British people, this can be another such moment on the launching pad.”  Johnson had recaptured national power, formerly tethered to the European Union and he knew where he wanted to go: “Leaving our chrysalis…. the United Kingdom will go out into the world.” 

How close is the Prime Minister to achieving the launch of global Britain one year later? The dream was for Britain to be the leader of global free trade.  It would beat back the mercantilists protecting their national or regional markets.  It would defeat the tariffs waved around like cudgels in foreign policy debates. It would reverse the trend of anemic trade and increasing global poverty. Poised with top-notch trade experts and economists, the PM said that Britain would engage in “the great multi-dimensional game of chess” in which UK officials would negotiate with several governments at the same time. Westminster would “use nerves and muscles and instincts that this country has not had to use for half a century.”  They would negotiate with the Commonwealth, including Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. And, they would “get going with our friends in America.” 

Sovereignty is the lode star, guiding prosperity and international negotiations on trade, financial services and security policy. Thus, despite the commitment in the Greenwich speech not to seek lower standards or dump goods in the EU market, Johnson will amend UK standards to suit the role of a ‘global free trader.’ [The December 2020 trade agreement with the EU accepts the role of an independent arbiter to resolve disputes over diverging standards and regulations, but the lengthy process will enable the UK to postpone a settlement for several months and thus stay ahead of Brussels grumblers.]  Sovereignty remains key on financial services.  London ditched EU regulations and the so-called ‘equivalence’ principle in order to trade freely with international financial markets. Consequently, EU shares, valued at  £ 6.5 billion in trades a day, flew out of the City of London in the first week of January.  The PM may point to the freedom to trade with the Swiss stock exchange, but his Chancellor of the Exchequer will need more than the anticipated £ 1.2 billion in Swiss trades a day to compensate for the loss of the EU market.  In the meantime, financiers who made the City of London an international hub over centuries have moved to Amsterdam, Paris and other European cities.

Principles of independent foreign policy

Sovereignty is more than trade in goods and services, although the latter has held the golden key to the UK’s balance of payments for 100 years. Johnson also sought independence from the EU’s foreign policy, asserting the UK’s right to impose its own sanctions on breakers of international law. But what are the principles that should guide the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), particularly as the UK assumes the chairmanship of the G7?

The UK is currently living through a ‘pause,’ somewhat similar to the first 6 months of the George H.W. Bush presidency. Consequently, the PM has appeared conspicuously silent on foreign policy issues. He seeks to create original policies that make the UK distinctive from Brussels.  But the FCO recognizes that the EU and its member states are the most closely aligned with the UK in defending democratic institutions and human rights, promoting international peace & security, encouraging greater economic prosperity, and protecting intellectual property rights.   His predecessor, Prime Minister Teresa May, stated at the Munich Security Conference in 2018 that

  • “Europe’s security is our security, and the United Kingdom is unconditionally committed to maintaining it. The challenge for all of us today is finding the way to work together through a deep and special partnership between the UK and the EU, to retain the co-operation that we have built and go further in meeting the evolving threats we face together.”
Commitment to Europe’s security

We should hope that this principle still stands, but Johnson’s breach of the Withdrawal Agreement over trade across the Irish Sea showed his willingness to amend accords with Brussels to suit his interests. How will the PM demonstrate his commitment to Europe’s security while insisting on UK independence to advance its own national security interests?  At the Greenwich speech in 2020, Boris Johnson promised to continue cooperation with European friends in foreign and defense policy “whenever our interests converge – as they often, if not always, will.”

On Iran, the UK has remained firm in its commitment to respect the EU institutional process and support the JCPOA. In multilateral institutions, Britain and EU members states continue to stand mostly together.  The UK remains an active member in the E3 – Germany, France and the UK – upholding the Iran nuclear deal and resisting U.S. pressure to declare the JCPOA dead.  The E3 have continued to coordinate on Iranian breaches of human rights and at a political-director level have discussed policy towards Russia. After the poisoning of Alexei Navalny, they coordinated closely over Russian sanctions similar to the response taken when Mr. Skripal was poisoned at Salisbury in 2018. 

New partnership with Kyiv, Sanctions against Lukashenko regime

However, the process of coordinating the positions of 27 European governments in developing a common foreign policy has left room for the FCO to act independently of the European External Action Service (EEAS). While Brussels dithered, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab offered a defense and political partnership with Kyiv, focused on military technical cooperation.  Together with Canada, London issued sanctions against Alexsandr Lukashenko’s regime in Belarus.  Raab neither protested Turkish breaches of the UN arms embargo against Libya, nor showed willingness to sanction Turkey on its drilling for gas in the eastern Mediterranean.  In short, Johnson’s government is determined to demonstrate independence of judgement and ability to act fast in comparison with the cumbersome EU foreign policy process.

The UK has a highly-reputed diplomatic service with the knowledge and expertise to engage intelligently on a global scale.  This resource is worth more than the economic budget for international affairs which, by necessity, will be reduced in the post-COVID19 era.  The FCO is well placed to work with others to achieve common purposes.  It will continue to coordinate with Brussels on policy towards the Middle East and Iran, as well as cybersecurity and the protection of assets in space.  Beyond Europe, we should expect London to be more aggressive in seeking advantages in Washington and pursuing alliances with India, Australia, Singapore and other members of the British Commonwealth.  Shared language and values make it natural for the UK to further develop those trade and security ties.

Reduced public funds for R&D

The dream of a ‘Singapore-on-Thames’ based upon its talented scientists, engineers, and inventors is an exciting concept.  The dreamchild of Dominic Cummings saw the UK take the European lead in quantum computing, artificial intelligence, genome therapy, and machine learning.  The reality of a year-long pandemic and rising digital sovereignty may reduce public funds to galvanize these scientific projects, but the private sector remains interested.  Furthermore, the 291 projects with the U.S. National Science Foundation in 2019 raise the prospect of continued international collaboration. An increased UK participation in the Event Horizon Telescope that is imaging black holes would be one such example.

We should anticipate serious British efforts to work closely with the incoming Biden administration on a wide range of issues, from scientific research and digital taxation to climate change and trade. On trade, President-elect Biden’s team has expressed a preference to engage with the EU, a market of nearly 448 million people, and it regrets that the UK left the regional body.  But we should expect the continuation of close ties on security and intelligence.  A free trade agreement may have to wait until Washington completes its agreement with Brussels.  In the meantime, the UK assumed chairmanship of the G7 in January 2021 and thus the ability to play a leading role in the drafting of documents for COP26, international debt relief, and the coalition of democracy.  In 2021, the opportunities for the UK are plentiful to show that it can be a leader on critical global issues.

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bodog sportsbook review|Most Popular_the framework of WTO rules. /blogs/western-economies-state-intervention/ Thu, 05 Nov 2020 14:28:12 +0000 /?post_type=blogs&p=24677 FRANKFURT—Western governments are taking a page from their Asian rivals and moving away from the free-market doctrine that defined their economic thinking for decades, instead embracing greater state control of...

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FRANKFURT—Western governments are taking a page from their Asian rivals and moving away from the free-market doctrine that defined their economic thinking for decades, instead embracing greater state control of business activity.

The shift reflects a deep anxiety about the West’s ability to maintain its living standards and technological edge while competing with giant state-backed companies in China and elsewhere in Asia.

The trend is being accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic, which has prompted a rethink of the balance between the state and private sector, as well as fresh ideas about how giant stimulus programs in Europe and the U.S. could be deployed to reshape economies.

In the European Union, an export powerhouse that had long prized laissez-faire policies and free trade, leaders last month vowed to erect barriers to foreign competitors, repatriate production of key technologies, reduce dependencies in sensitive industries such as health, and create new digital champions.

Italian state-backed lender Cassa Depositi e Prestiti last month took a stake in European exchange operator Euronext NV to support its buyout of the Italian stock exchange. Germany’s government recently demanded a 20% stake in national flag carrier Deutsche Lufthansa AG , which was privatized in 1997, and two supervisory board seats, in return for a $10 billion bailout.

In the U.S., both main political parties are moving toward a stronger role for the government on economic issues. The administration and lawmakers from both parties also are pushing for additional funding to help the U.S. semiconductor industry keep its edge over China, offering incentives to chip firms to build factories in the U.S. and funding technology research. So far, Congress hasn’t agreed on funding to put the plans into action. Should former Vice President Joe Biden prevail in the presidential election, he has said he would put huge funding into industrial policy efforts.

“It’s a major historical development,” said Adam Posen, a former Bank of England policy maker who is now president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. “It’s a reaction to China. It’s a reaction to Covid-19 and wanting to have more reliability and government control.”

The changes reflect a fundamental philosophical shift away from the market-oriented consensus dominant in the West since around 1980, which emphasizes a reduction in state support for businesses, the removal of regulations impeding competition, and trade liberalization.

Now, as Western governments bodog sportsbook review wield enormous stimulus packages, they are pouring money into industries traditionally considered beyond the remit of the state.

Italy plans to spend 2 billion euros, equivalent to $2.3 billion, to buy and refurbish hotels devastated by the crash in tourism. In France, authorities plan to spend hundreds of millions of euros to buy local stores to support quintessentially French businesses such as bakeries and cheese shops.

In the U.K., Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government has signaled it will pursue an aggressive industrial policy of state aid to businesses after Brexit, risking a rift with the EU.

“The public are prepared for the state to play a bigger role in all sorts of things,” said Gus O’Donnell, former head of the U.K. civil service.

Across Europe, businesses and policy makers are fearful of being squeezed out of new digital industries dominated by U.S. and Chinese companies.

Meanwhile, the pandemic has driven Asian countries to double down on the tradition of state intervention that has fueled extraordinary growth and produced winning industries such as electronics manufacturing in South Korea and Japan, and China’s solar power and semiconductor industries.

“One thing we could learn [from China] is to make a strategy and stick to it,” especially in new digital industries, said Margrethe Vestager, executive vice president of the European Commission, in an interview.

There are risks to the new approach. Some governments have demonstrated limited expertise in picking the companies and industries to invest in, with Asian countries pouring money into such efforts over decades, some of it without success.

In China, concerns are growing among some economists that a fresh wave of government spending on power, gas and water-supply infrastructure—which it hopes will lift the economy—will exacerbate overinvestment in those sectors.

In Europe, the Common Agricultural Policy became infamous for generating huge inefficiencies—so-called butter mountains and lakes of wine. The Italian government has spent billions of euros trying to make airline Alitalia a success, only for it to continue losing money.

While large-scale government and military programs helped seed important industries during World War II and later led to the creation of the internet, the pendulum swung back to small government in the 1980s, when Western governments got out of businesses such as telecoms, utilities and transport.

Economically successful East Asian nations including Japan, South Korea and Taiwan have a history of government intervention and encouraging big export industries. Close ties between governments and the private sector are widely credited for having lifted the region out of poverty.

The aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis eased decades of skepticism toward big government. The countries that intervened most, such as the U.S. and China, emerged strongest, while those that were most stringent, including Southern Europe, were hobbled for years.

Chinese state-owned enterprises doled out more than 4 trillion yuan, equivalent to $600 billion, to build bridges, airports and other infrastructure. Between 2012 and 2018, the value of Chinese state companies’ assets grew more than 15% annually, well over twice the growth rate of the country’s economy, according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

“The sheer scale of China’s economic growth has raised the global profile and attraction of the state capitalist model,” said William L. Megginson, professor of finance at the University of Oklahoma.

Efforts to bolster certain industries have gained urgency in the West as China’s focus shifts from cheaper goods to the more expensive products that U.S. and European companies specialize in.

China is pouring tens billions of dollars into industries it has identified as strategic priorities, such as semiconductors and robotics, while Chinese authorities use favorable policies to nurture homegrown high-tech companies. Covid-19 has led to more trade protectionism, prompting Beijing to speed up efforts to reduce dependence on foreign core technologies.

In Germany, businesses are calling on the government for help advancing in future technologies as the nation’s large auto sector sags—and countering an increasingly competitive China.

“In some areas we are losing ground to China, such as the electronics industry,” said Toralf Haag, chief executive of Voith Group, a German engineering company. The huge investments needed to foster new technologies are “too big of a project to lift for companies alone.”

In Brussels, European lawmakers are pushing to relax rules limiting state aid in a bid to spur the creation of national champions.

Meanwhile, Asian countries are focusing on the state-centric model.

South Korea in July unveiled a plan worth 5 trillion won, equivalent to $4.4 billion, to protect its supply chains against disruptions, which includes incentives for firms to repatriate production. Japan is spending $2 billion on efforts to bring production back from China or to diversify it into Southeast Asia.

Chinese state-owned enterprises including China Mobile Ltd. and China Railway Group Ltd. created more than one million new jobs earlier this year as private businesses cut spending, according to state media.

Still, some economists argue that China also has a poor record of picking winners, and that its stunning economic growth has been driven by the private sector.

“Many of the Chinese interventions…have been failures, but China has enjoyed enough success in promoting key industries such as solar power, steel and artificial intelligence that it is perceived as winning,” said Mr. Megginson.

Businesses—especially in export-oriented countries such as Germany, Italy and South Korea—worry that renationalizing trade and supply lines will increase costs while hurting innovation and productivity.

Recently departed Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe put the government’s muscle behind an effort to export infrastructure such as nuclear-power plants and bullet trains to Europe and developing nations, an effort that ended mostly in failure as the recent collapse of a Hitachi Ltd. -led nuclear-power project in Wales shows.

“I’m not sure the government has a particular knowledge in terms of which sector might expand. Industrial policy leads to bureaucracy,” said Carlo Cottarelli, a former Italian government official who headed an ill-fated attempt to cut government waste.

Tom Fairless writes about the European Central Bank from The Wall Street Journal’s Frankfurt office. His coverage areas include monetary policy, the European economy and the ECB’s new role overseeing the region’s banks.

Stella Yifan Xie is a Hong Kong-based reporter covering finance, deals and asset management, with a focus on China. She previously worked in the Journal’s Shanghai bureau, where she wrote about the stock and commodities markets, financial regulation and business conglomerates.

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