Least Developed Countries (LDCs) are missing out on the foreign direct investment (FDI) they need to transform their economies and benefit from meaningful progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). But it doesn’t have to be this way.

According to the 27th Global Trade Alert Report, Advancing Sustainable Development with FDI: why policy must be reset, an annual average of only two new greenfield FDI projects in SDG-intensive sectors were announced in each LDC between 2015 and 2019.

This comes amid broader declines in the real value of FDI into developing countries that started with the 2008 financial crisis and have accelerated during the pandemic.

Although global FDI inflows had been nominally recovering since 2010, gaining an average 7.1% per year until 2019, a typical annual capital depreciation rate of 3.9% eroded much of that growth. At that rate, FDI inflows into developing countries would need to exceed $440 billion just to replace ageing FDI assets. And due to economic fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic, FDI has since plungedto levels not seen since 1995, the report highlights.

This is concerning for LDCs that have yet to replicate the huge economic boost that transition economies and low and middle income countries (LMICs) in East Asia and Eastern Europe had already enjoyed due to FDI, noted Simon Evenett, co-author of the report and Professor of International Trade and Economic Development at the University of St Gallen.

But with creative thinking and support from donors and international organizations, LDCs still have an opportunity to buck the current trend and experience a similar uplift, he added. “Just because it hasn’t happened to the degree LDCs might have liked in the past doesn’t mean it won’t happen in the future.”

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One lesson LDCs can apply from recent years is that facilitating good commercial outcomes for FDI investors is critical.

Despite the higher risks associated with investing in developing countries – and hence investors’ rational desire to be compensated with higher returns – direct foreign investments in developing countries in Asia Pacific and Central and South America have for more than a decade yielded returns that barely exceed those of European Union countries, the Global Trade Alert Report noted.

According to UNCTAD’s 2020 World Investment Report, the fall in global FDI inflows coincides almost exactly with a gradual decline in those investments’ financial returns, which shrank from 7.1% in 2010 to 6.7% by 2019. Declines in developing countries were significantly sharper, with FDI returns falling to 7.8% by 2018 from 11.5% in 2011, while in Africa they almost halved over the same period, from 12% to 6.5%, UNCTAD figures show.

At the same time however, private-sector firms are under growing pressure from both civil society and their own investors to contribute more to sustainable development and improve their ESG credentials. This may offer window of opportunity for LDCs to compete for a bigger share of higher-quality, more sustainable FDI – but only if they can help firms be adequately rewarded with better commercial returns.

Treat FDI better

Treatment of FDI has also deteriorated across the board since 2014, with FDI-conducive policies at both G20 countries and LDCs falling sharply between 2019 and 2020 to less than 40% of all newly implemented policies, the Global Trade Alert Report found.

Figure 2 Global Trade Report June 2 2021, p27

Cambodia however offers one positive example of how policies aimed at supporting FDI inflows and financial returns can reap rewards, according to Evenett.

Although Cambodia was not immune to Covid-19 – with Coface figures pointing to a 49% year-on-year decline in foreign investment in the first quarter of 2020 – its FDI inflows had reached a record high the previous year, growing 16% to $3.7 billion, according to UNCTAD. And even in 2020, the Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC) approved 238 investment projects worth $8.2 billion across a good mix of sectors.

Ways the kingdom has facilitated foreign investment include the creation of special economic zones (SEZs) that provide businesses with access to land, infrastructure and services, and the introduction of incentives such as corporate tax holidays, 100% ownership of companies and duty-free import of capital goods.

Self-reflect with development bank support

LDCs looking to reboot their FDI should start by examining their own track record, seeking to establish which policies or corporate practices are responsible for the rates of return multinational corporations’ foreign affiliates generate in their country, as well as what is driving up perceived risk levels and what impact FDI has on the ground, the report recommends. Partnering with the World Bank or a regional development bank should help this process.

Policy makers should then develop an FDI framework that not only helps their country compete against other locations for foreign investment but makes it more lucrative for companies to invest in the country than simply export to it, Evenett argues.

Target incentives at priority sectors

Policies should ensure state aid for FDI is targeted only at sectors that the LDC has identified as most likely to benefit sustainable development, the report advises. Enhanced incentives should also be offered for investments that facilitate the transfer of innovations that deliver progress towards priority sectors.

A list of these sectors should be made public to inward investors and potential donor governments, it adds.

Resist erecting trade barriers

The erection of trade barriers has long been recognized as a potential tactic for countries looking to attract more FDI from foreign companies that want to reach new markets.

“Governments can try and secure more FDI by blocking out exports and making firms jump the trade barrier and invest in the country,” Evenett noted. However, “our experience of that is it’s a disaster.”

One unintended consequence of introducing tariff or non-tariff barriers is that LDCs’ low-income populations end up paying more for essential goods and services, such as food, medicines or education, he explains. It is far better in such cases therefore to properly incentivize investment in local production capacity from the outset, he argues.

Ensure transparency and stability

Whatever improvements LDCs make now, policy stability and transparency will be key to de-risking FDI in the future, Evenett adds. Any FDI framework should therefore have a five- to 10-year shelf life and be made clear and accessible.

To make long-term investments, companies need to be able to research and understand regulations easily and have confidence they won’t change halfway through a project. “Uncertainty is the killer of investment,” he concludes.

To read the full commentary by Enhanced Integrated Framework, please click here.

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U.S. firms and their increasingly digital goods and services are susceptible to non-tariff barriers in the form of both at-the-border and behind-the-border laws and regulations. Censorship as an NTB takes on a few key forms, such as:

• At the border blocking of access to websites with legal content, such as China’s “Great Firewall.”
• Arbitrary, opaque, and discriminatory content review processes for TV shows, movies, apps, software, video games, and other digital content.
• Quotas on certain foreign content, such as movies.
• Arbitrary, opaque, and discriminatory licensing and control over Internet, content distribution, Internet access, and Internet connectivity services, such as Internet “blackouts” and not granting licensing to video-on-demand streaming and virtual private network (VPN) services.
• Forced local data residency requirements (known as data localization) for “content moderation” frameworks that are in large part driven by censorship as governments want to remove content and speech they deem politically sensitive.

Analyzing censorship and trade is challenging and requires nuance. There is a need to differentiate between good-faith efforts by countries to address legitimate issues about digital content, such as those targeting child pornography, violent extremist material, copyright infringing material and services, and other issues where many countries mutually recognize there are problems. For example, a growing number of countries allow firms to get legal injunctions to get Internet service providers to block their users from accessing certain websites involved in the mass distribution of copyright-infringing material. This is not censorship, any more than not letting people yell fire in a crowded theatre is censorship.

Not every website should be freely accessible. Some argue that even the legitimate blocking of content helps totalitarian governments justify their own content blocks. These nations don’t need additional justification. Moreover, there is a stark difference between a government that uses transparent means within an independent legal system to block access to illegal content and one that is engaging in censorship in order to control its population. Furthermore, just as supporting bans on the importation of ivory does not make one a protectionist, supporting website blocking for sites dedicated to piracy does not make one an opponent of a free and open Internet. However, when countries (such as China, Iran, and elsewhere) block access to Internet services due to the political and social nature of the content, this is censorship. Likewise, many countries have frameworks to review digital content as part of classification schemes (e.g., to designate what is safe for children). This is not censorship. However, when countries use purposely opaque (and politically motivated) assessment criteria and processes or make arbitrary decisions to block foreign services and content (such as is the case in China, Nigeria, and India), this is censorship.

Similarly, not all countries have a constitutional right, and broad legal protections, for free speech like the United States. Differing legal, social, cultural, and political values and systems mean that countries take different approaches to determining what discourse is or is not protected online, even in other democratic countries. Certain discourse and content that is legal in the United States may be illegal in other countries, such as content related to hate speech. While this may raise valid human rights concerns, it’s less of a trade issue, as these cases tend to be narrowly focused and within a broader legal framework where U.S. firms have a transparent criteria and legal redress to manage country-specific differences.

This highlights the importance of a careful assessment of the underlying motivation behind restrictions targeting digital content when analyzing content moderation versus censorship and in considering the trade impact. While censorship may be a primary motivation for many of these policies, by making life hard or simply keeping U.S. firms or content out of the market, the government gets the added benefit of protecting local firms from foreign competition. It is somewhat easier (but still challenging) to assess the trade impact when U.S. firms and products are completely excluded from a market (such as China), but it is still difficult as local market factors (like differing consumer preferences) mean that U.S. firms may not have the same market share as at home or in neighboring markets. It’s also challenging to assess the individual and cumulative impact of U.S. firms and products being temporarily banned (as in Internet “blackouts”) or when certain content (whether TV shows or video games) are only temporarily blocked or are delayed in being released. However, the impact of each market barrier adds up in a similar ways as how increases in tariffs or slow and costly import customs clearance deleteriously affects trade in physical goods.

China is by far the worst offender in using censorship as a barrier to digital trade. U.S. firms have lost significant revenue by being blocked or inhibited from accessing and operating in the Chinese market. Within the Chinese context, censorship means broad, discriminatory, and arbitrary control over data, digital content, distribution platforms, IT infrastructure, and the respective firms involved in each. China uses opaque, discriminatory, and arbitrary content moderation and control rules to severely limit or fully prohibit foreign firms and their digital products from accessing multiple sectors of the Chinese market. Chinese protectionism in these sectors has already inflicted significant costs on U.S. trade and firms, and the threat will only grow with the continued proliferation and acceptance of these practices. While censorship is far from China’s only (digital) protectionist tool, it is a key one that has led to a generation of Chinese consumers unaware of the vast differences between their Internet consumption and the rest of the world’s.

China uses the Great Firewall to block thousands of foreign websites and thus deny market access; however, this is simply one way in which China uses censorship as an NTB. As a specific example, China’s rapidly expanding video game market already accounts for 33 percent of total global revenue for PC and mobile gaming, but foreign games make up only a small minority of the games approved by censors. In 2019, of the 1,570 games approved, an overwhelming 88 percent (1,385) titles were domestic, a phenomenon not seen in other countries where titles by major U.S. and Japanese developers have a large share of the market. The justifications for blocking games can be as arbitrary and vague as “overly obscene or immoral” content and “cultural content.” The lack of a clear criteria and a transparent approval and appeal process gives Chinese officials a free hand to block foreign content not just in their rapidly expanding gaming market, but also in the equally enticing Chinese movie and TV markets.

China is particularly problematic as it acts a model of protectionism-through-censorship globally. India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Turkey, Vietnam, and other countries are attracted to China’s model due to its ability to control content and act as a barrier to trade. These countries are no doubt emboldened by the fact China has been able to enact these restrictions without repercussions from its trade partners. In 2018 alone, at least 25 nations throttled users’ bandwidth, shut off their mobile or broadband Internet services altogether, or blocked access to mainstream Internet sites or applications. Censorship is one of the reasons governments have cut off access to the Internet, as evidenced by the erroneously asserted justification that it was necessary to stem political protests and to stop the spread of “fake” news, alongside broad and vague concerns about public safety and national security. Eleven countries have banned or restricted VPNs, which use encryption to provide users a private connection over the Internet in order to prevent local ISPs from monitoring their online activity.

The impact on U.S. trade, competitiveness, and innovation is many, varied, and significant. U.S. firms have already lost billions of dollars in sales in key sectors due to these practices, and this number will only increase as protected Chinese firms grow and expand globally and as other countries emulate its approach or adopt their own. Tech firms and content creators losing access to foreign markets reduces their global market share and revenue, which reduces their ability to support R&D, content creation, and associated U.S.-based operations.

While it is challenging to calculate an exact figure, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation conservatively estimates that Google, which withdrew from the Chinese market in 2010, subsequently lost more than $32 billion in search revenue over a 5-year period from 2013 to 2019. Likewise, Amazon and Microsoft’s cloud services, which Chinese policies have severely restricted, lost a combined $1.6 billion over the two-year period from 2017 to 2018. As the China market continues to rapidly grow, these losses will also grow significantly. And it is important to remember that this was all during a time when China was already running significant trade surpluses with the United States.

The problem (and potential economic impact) of censorship as an NTB is further exacerbated by policymakers calling for firms to leave the Chinese market in response to documented human rights violations. Such a move would not punish China by robbing it of the services of the U.S. tech giants, but instead would forfeit the entirety of the Chinese market to the tech giants’ competition. With or without these U.S. firms bodog casino present, the Chinese public will face a highly censored Internet. Therefore, the best way to combat the Chinese Communist Party’s rising power and global influence is to keep U.S. firms competing in China and striving to attain the highest possible market share. Of course, the United States and its allies must remain committed to the protection of human rights and condemn and punish governments that blatantly violate them. Supporting trade and supporting human rights do not have to be mutually exclusive: the United States can diplomatically challenge China on its human rights violations while simultaneously working to remove NTBs caused by censorship through a targeted, detailed strategy.

U.S. policy must recognize the harm caused by these barriers and seek to mitigate their impact on global digital market access. Because China (and other countries) rely on a range of otherwise legitimate public policy goals to provide a justification for their approach to censorship—such as public safety, morals, and national security—the United States and other governments have been reluctant to challenge Chinese practices. This needs to change. If the United States fails to act against China and other countries’ use of censorship as an NTB it’ll be undermining the U.S.’s leading role in the global digital economy. Failure to act will also further legitimize the concept of “digital sovereignty” where governments intervene directly and extensively in the digital economy to censor online data flows and digital content without limits. The United States must develop and employ a stronger strategy to push back against the trade impact of Chinese censorship as an NTB, and to prevent this protectionist model from spreading to more markets.

Nigel Cory is an associate director covering trade policy at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. He focuses on cross-border data flows, data governance, intellectual property, and how they each relate to digital trade and the broader digital economy.

To read the full commentary from the Information Technology & Innovation Fund, please click here.

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What is massive modularity? An example can be found in the mobile telecommunication industry. Albeit simplified, Figure 1 visually represents six major modules in three broad functional areas that define a smartphone handset. The modules share common traits: (i) they are interconnected with each other according to standard interfaces; (ii) innovation can take place independently in each module, as long as the interface standard is adhered to and continually updated; and (iii) they can be broken down into smaller, more specialized modules (represented by bullet points in Figure 1), each with its own evolving standards, replicating the modular pattern at progressively deeper levels. 

Massive modularity allows industries to cope with rapidly growing complexity in products and systems.  For instance, after decades of industry evolution, a single phone may incorporate decades of wireless communications standards (2G, 3G, 4G, and now 5G), be compatible with 10 or more WiFi standards, offer multiple, distinct WiFi services, and include seven or more distinct US-led GPS services, not to mention versions of the three other major non-US geolocation systems[1].  Similar structures support the evolution of Google’s Android operating system, Bluetooth, nearfield communications (mobile payment), audio, video, and many others lurking in the depths of the massively modular system (MMS) that is your mobile phone. 

Over the years, the mobile telecom GVC has evolved from a standard GVC structure (with, for example, Finland’s Nokia, Sweden’s Ericsson, and the USA’s Motorola designing their own handsets and selecting suppliers) to a MMS where expertise and market share is dispersed in specific functional modules that have gradually become highly concentrated in specific companies and countries. Figure 2 illustrates the extraordinary geographic concentration in the industry across a few key functions in 2019. 

Figure 1. Major functional modules in a mobile phone

Source: Thun, Taglioni, Sturgeon, and Dallas, forthcoming, “The prospects for decoupling in massively modular industries.”

Figure 2. Mobile handset share of value added in main functions, by geography of supplier ownership, 2019

Source: Thun, Taglioni, Sturgeon, and Dallas, forthcoming, “The prospects for decoupling in massively modular industries.” using data from IHS Market device teardown reports for 40 handsets.

The United States is predominant in the most R&D and design-intensive ICs, such as phones’ application processors (CPU) and advanced radio frequency IC packages. The Rep. of Korea is predominant in capital- and process-intensive memory production and LCD displays. In some cases, global capabilities are focused on a single firm (Qualcomm in processors, and Samsung in memory and displays). And this is just a single layer of the mobile phone.  Opening the proverbial hood of each of these functional areas reveals new standards, dominant players, and platform ecosystems operating at lower levels. Thus, even giants like Qualcomm must stand on the shoulders of hidden giants like Taiwan’s TSMC, which manufactures many of its ICs and provides process-specific design requirements to make this possible, and the United Kingdom’s ARM, which provides the power management architecture present in 95% of mobile handsets. Tellingly, the ARM ecosystem includes hundreds of complementing firms that sell tools to make it easier for handset designers to adhere to the (de facto) ARM standard. As ICT become more important, if not core, in more industries, it appears that more industries are evolving in the direction of massive modularity.[2]

Why is massive modularity important? One reason is cybersecurity risk. Because innovation in MMS is both partitioned and constantly evolving, new modules and standards usually include “legacy” code, circuity and other features that ensure they are compatible with existing and older standards, at least at first, instead of purging them and starting from scratch. In addition, the openness of massively modular systems means that new devices and software can be added without the permission of any single gatekeeper.  While the results might be astounding, MMS typically have accumulated hundreds, if not thousands of backdoors and vulnerabilities that can be, and regularly are, exploited by bad actors. While cybersecurity risks are a special type of strategic vulnerability, and one that will require especially urgent attention, digital services are symbolic of the diverse vulnerabilities that reside in massively modular industries. 

What are the broader implications of MMS for geopolitics, national security and industrial policy? First, the policy challenge is not only that vulnerabilities can surprise and disrupt, but also that policies aimed at reducing risk might have severe unintended consequences, as shocks become amplified and propagate through complex industries in ways that are difficult to predict (as Mandelbrot’s Fractal Geometry teaches us). Clearly, some options that governments are considering risk falling short of confronting the vast multi-dimensional complexity of the industries they are hoping to rebalance. Between the extremes of rebuilding massively modular industries in all their complexity on a national level, or trying to mitigate each crisis as it arises in an endless game of whack-a-mole, there lies a vast middle ground of options that include combinations of strategic buffering and recasting of international cooperation that allow for some degree of global supply chain risk, given that GVCs are likely to remain globally distributed. 

But first we need to see the world as it is and not how it used to be. There is an urgent need to characterize industries not only in terms of trade and investment flows, but also in terms of IPR and asset ownership—something not currently possible with official economic statistics. It will require a new type of policy expertise to help ensure that shocks to the system are reabsorbed and not amplified. Most of all, it will require the uncommon marriage of technical and political skill to needed engage partners in the context of exceedingly complex technological ecosystems and business strategies.

Eric Thun is the Peter Moores Associate Professor in Chinese Business at Oxford’s Saïd Business School and a Fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford. His areas of expertise include business in China, industrial development and upgrading in China, and Chinese political economy, as well as global strategy and global value chains.  His primary research interests revolve around the dynamics of competition and innovation in emerging markets.

Daria Taglioni is Research Manager, Trade and International Integration, Development Research Group. She joined the World Bank Group in 2011 as Senior Trade Economist in the International Trade Department of the Poverty Reducation and Economic Management Network (PREM).  Since then, she has held various positions and roles, including Team-Task Lead for the World Development Report 2020, Principal Economist in the International Finance Corporation, and World Bank’s Global Lead on Global Value Chains.

Dr. Timothy J. Sturgeon is Senior Researcher at the at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Industrial Performance Center (IPC).  His research focuses on the processes of global integration and digital transformation, with an emphasis on offshoring and outsourcing practices in the electronics, automotive, and services industries. He has made significant contributions to Global Value Chain (GVC) theory and is working to improve the metrics and methods available for globalization research.

Mark P. Dallas is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of Asian Studies at Union College in New York.  In 2021-22, he will be a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow for Tenured International Relations Scholars (IAF-TIRS), working at a US government executive agency on US policies bodog sportsbook review related to China, emerging technologies, supply chains and national security.

To read the full commentary from World Bank Blogs, please click here. 

Image from World Bank Blogs 

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From steel and aluminum tariffs to grain subsidies to boosting exports of liquefied natural gas, very few corners of the global commodities market eluded Donald Trump’s attention. There was at least one memo, executive order, pronouncement or tweet bringing some sort of attention to uranium, soybeans, and rare earths, the kinds of materials that haven’t received attention from American presidents in years.

Now, with Joe Biden winning the election, how will the next U.S. president diverge from his predecessor, and where he might keep the status quo?

Steel and Aluminum

The biggest issues in steel and aluminum are very similar, given these two industries — especially steel — were a top priority for the Trump administration. Tariffs aren’t expected to go away any time soon under Biden, and market participants have adjusted for the 25% duty on steel imports and the 10% levy on aluminum.

Removing them would be like catching a falling knife: It would alienate voters across the Midwest who helped Biden across the finish line. It would also lead U.S. Steel Corp. and Century Aluminum Co., among others, and the United Steelworkers union to lobby for some sort of new trade action to protect their industries.

Biden is more likely to maintain the tariffs and work with key allies — including the European Union, Japan and Canada — to form a bloc opposing the subsidies China gives to its industries, which produce more than half of the world’s steel and aluminum. The Trump administration openly shunned multilateral trade partnerships, so this would be a big change in policy. It’s still unclear, though, what policies Biden would enact to further protect the industries, both of whom claim need more help.

LNG

Trump administration officials criss-crossed Europe and Asia in 2019 touting U.S. LNG exports as “freedom gas” and “molecules of U.S. freedom,” but trade wars hurt sales as did environmental concerns over flaring in the Permian Basin and other emissions associated with production and shipment.

Biden didn’t state a position about LNG on his campaign website but boasts a plan to reduce methane emissions and flaring, which European buyers would welcome. Biden was vice president when the Obama administration approved permits for all six of the current LNG export terminals.

Political observers believe that Biden would bring the U.S. back into the Paris Agreement, an environmental treaty between nearly 200 nations to reduce greenhouse gas pollution. With buyers across the globe seeking greener or carbon-neutral LNG cargoes, the move might benefit U.S. exporters.

“Our biggest concern is American LNG exports to Asia and to Europe, and how those have declined as a consequence of some of these trade wars,” said Mike Sommers, the president of the American Petroleum Institute. As a previous longtime member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden “has a firm understanding of how important American energy independence is from a foreign policy perspective as well,” he said.

Oil

Energy will likely be on the table in U.S. trade talks with China.

“As long as U.S. energy production such as shale oil, LPG and natural gas exceeds domestic demand, America would be an exporter,” said Sandy Fielden, director of research for Morningstar Inc. “So China, as the world’s largest consumer, will use energy as a bargaining chip. A Biden administration would implement a measured trade policy without the Trump tit-for-tat noise.”

“With a Biden victory, what you’re going to expect is a lot less trade uncertainty, and that is great for oil prices,” said Edward Moya, a senior market analyst at Oanda Corp. “We see the best demand when globalization is trending.”

Despite ratcheting up sanctions on Venezuela’s state oil company, Trump wasn’t able to dislodge Nicolas Maduro. Analysts say that a Biden victory won’t necessarily reverse all the measures taken against Maduro.

Biden will seek to re-enter the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal and lift sanctions on the country, according to RBC Capital Markets’ Helima Croft. “We continue to anticipate Iran being able to return around 1 million barrels a day of exports back to the market by the second half of 2021,” Croft said in a note.

Dairy

U.S. officials have pushed for stricter Canadian enforcement of the terms of dairy trade outlined in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, an area that could see fresh attention after the election. Only a small portion of U.S. cheese, dry milk and other dairy products crosses the border to Canadian markets. Still, many American dairies and processors have insisted that primarily their lower-value ingredients like powders are imported by Canada, while higher-value finished products like fine cheeses are largely barred. The U.S. and other large dairy producers around the globe have also criticized Canada’s below-market-priced exports as unfair competition.

A Biden presidency may slow some progress the industry is pushing for as guidelines around trade between the U.S. and Canada cement through the end of the year. While dairy policy tends to capture bipartisan support, some market watchers are concerned that Biden’s team may not share the Trump administration’s skepticism of Canada’s dairy trade and pricing systems, potentially delaying or tempering efforts to change them.

Grains

A Biden presidency could lead to warmer trade relations with China, supporting the rally in corn, wheat and soybeans, which hit a four-year high. He may roll back tariffs on Chinese goods, paving the way for more U.S. exports of agricultural products to Asia.

Exports to China have surged, but that’s largely due to market forces that made America the best source of corn and soybeans. Many earlier this year speculated that China would wait until the election to question the phase-one trade deal or trigger a clause that allows the Asian nation not to fulfill its pledges due to the pandemic.

Even with the surge in the second half of the year, shipments of agricultural and related products through September were about 38% of the deal target. The U.S. Trade Representative’s office said last month that 71% of the target has been reached.

China is rebuilding its hog herd more quickly than expected after being hit by African swine fever, a deadly virus that kills most infected pigs within 10 days. The Asian nation has already purchased a record amount of American corn, and sales of soybeans are running at their highest level in data going back to 1991. U.S. pork exports are at a record and sorghum and beef sales also gained a boost.

“China is implementing and purchasing under the phase one agreement,” Dave MacLennan, Cargill Inc.’s chief executive officer, said in a Bloomberg TV interview. But “most of the activity we believe is driven by pure economics, demand driven,” he said.

— With assistance by Justina Vasquez, Stephen Cunningham, Sergio Chapa, Andres Guerra Luz, Sheela Tobben, Lucia Kassai, Michael Jeffers, and Isis Almeida

Joe Deaux is a commodity and metal reporter for Bloomberg. 

To read the original blog, click here. 

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Higher prices also made steel more expensive for manufacturers that buy it, leading to the loss of about 75,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs, according to a study released late last year by the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.

The tariffs led to retaliatory tariffs on some U.S. exports. Harley-Davidson Inc. shifted motorcycle production for Europe to an overseas plant in 2018 after the European Union slapped a 31% tariff on U.S.-made bikes.

Those repercussions weren’t expected when Mr. Trump sketched out his tariff-led trade and infrastructure policy at a 2016 campaign speech in Monessen, Pa., a steel town south of Pittsburgh.

“We are going to put American-produced steel back into the backbone of our country,” Mr. Trump said in 2016. “This alone will create massive numbers of jobs.”

The president’s “America First” strategy for trade and his pledge to restore the region’s steel and coal-mining sectors attracted steelworkers who used to be reliable voters for Democratic candidates. Their support helped Mr. Trump take Pennsylvania by 44,292 votes in 2016.

“They want their livelihoods protected,” said Tim Ulery, 43 years old, an hourly worker at U.S. Steel’s Mon Valley Works near Pittsburgh, who said he again plans to vote for Mr. Trump. “I believe the tariff helped our plant.”

Mr. Ulery credits the tariff with giving company executives the confidence to invest in making Mon Valley more cost-competitive with newer mills. U.S. Steel in May 2019 revealed plans to replace a caster and rolling line to lower the cost of producing sheet steel.

Justin Ellsworth, a steelworker for 15 years at Mon Valley, which is spread out along the banks of the Monongahela River, said he believes most of his co-workers will still vote for Mr. Trump, but said he plans to cast his ballot for Democratic nominee Joe Biden —in part because of what Mr. Ellsworth considers a failed tariff policy.

Mr. Ellsworth, who voted for the Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016, said U.S. Steel and other steel companies continue to rack up losses. The tariff also alienated car markers and other manufacturers forced to pay more for steel without getting any benefits in return, he said.

“The approach rubbed me the wrong way,” said Mr. Ellsworth, 39. “The tariffs were politicized.”

 

 

Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel was one of the leading advocates for the tariff, saying the duties were needed to protect the domestic steel market from an increasing volume of inexpensive, foreign-made steel. By driving up prices for imported steel, domestic steelmakers were able to raise their own prices and increase profits.

“By reducing imports, the tariff strengthened the domestic steel industry and our country’s manufacturing base,” U.S. Steel said in a written statement.

Industry analysts, however, said the Trump tariffs haven’t significantly eased the global glut of steel that encourages exports and depresses prices. The industry had already received tariff relief on specific products from China, South Korea and other countries found to be in violation of trade laws by the Commerce Department during the Obama administration.

With the 25% tariff on imports propelling domestic steel prices, the benchmark sheet-steel price surged to a 10-year high at $920 bodog sportsbook review a ton within four months after tariffs started in March 2018.

Steelmakers boosted production as prices climbed. U.S. Steel restarted two blast furnaces in 2018 at its Granite City, Ill., mill that had been idle since 2015, and recalled 500 workers who were laid off when the furnaces were turned down.

Steel companies rolled out plans for new mills, too. Nucor Corp. NUE -2.41% , Steel Dynamics Inc. STLD -2.83% and other companies are adding capacity for nearly 11 million tons of flat-rolled steel annually in Texas, Kentucky, Arkansas and other states.

All that new capacity, however, will eventually saturate the U.S. market, where steel consumption is expected to decline in the coming years. Analysts said they doubt that steel prices, which have been hit hard this year by the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, will soon return 2018’s highs.

The new, highly efficient mills entering the market will put pressure on older mills in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and elsewhere in the Midwest that most need high steel prices to operate profitably. They rely on a higher-cost integrated production process that melts iron ore in blast furnaces fueled by coal.

As much as one-third of the production from these mills is at risk of closing in the coming years, said Christopher Plummer, managing director of market-consulting firm Metal Strategies Inc. in Pennsylvania.

“There’s no way you can bring that kind of new capacity on without having some negative impact on pricing,” he said.

Bob Tita covers manufacturing and industrial companies from The Wall Street Journal’s Chicago Bureau. 

William Mauldin is a reporter for The Wall Street Journal. 

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On climate change, Trump’s dismal legacy would be quickly wiped out. Biden has pledged to rejoin the 2015 Paris climate agreement “on day one” of his administration, achieve climate neutrality by 2050, and lead a global coalition against the climate threat. If this happens, Trump’s noisy denial of scientific evidence will be remembered as a minor blip.

In a surprisingly large number of domains, Trump has done little or has behaved too erratically to leave an imprint. Global financial regulation has not changed fundamentally during his term, and his administration has flip-flopped regarding the fight against tax havens. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have carried on working more or less smoothly, and Trump’s furious tweeting did not prevent the US Federal Reserve from continuing to act responsibly, including by providing dollar liquidity to key international partners during the COVID-19 crisis. True, Trump has repeatedly spoiled international summits, leaving his fellow leaders flummoxed. But such behaviour has been more embarrassing than consequential.

In contrast, Trump will be remembered for his trade initiatives. Although it has always been difficult to determine the real aims of an administration beset by infighting, three key goals now stand out: reshoring of manufacturing, an overhaul of the World Trade Organisation and economic decoupling from China. Each objective is likely to outlast Trump’s tenure, at least in part.

Reshoring looked like a costly fantasy four years ago, and it still is in many respects. As my Peterson Institute colleague Chad Bown has documented, Trump’s chaotic trade war with the world has often hurt US economic interests. But reshoring as a policy objective has gained new life after the pandemic exposed the vulnerability entailed by depending exclusively on global sourcing. Biden has endorsed the idea and ‘economic sovereignty’ – whatever that means – is now everywhere the new mantra.

US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer claims that a “reset” of the WTO has been a high priority for the administration. If so, it has made some headway. The other G7 countries now share the long-standing US dissatisfaction with the WTO’s leniency toward China’s government subsidies and weak intellectual-property protection. There is also a recognition that some US grievances against WTO dispute-settlement procedures (and in particular the so-called Appellate Body) are valid. But whether the battle ends with a reset or a decomposition of the multilateral trading system remains to be seen.

The major watershed is US-China relations. Although bilateral tensions were apparent before Trump’s election in 2016, nobody spoke of a ‘decoupling’ of two countries that had become tightly integrated economically and financially. Four years later, decoupling has begun on several fronts, from technology to trade and investment. Nowadays, US Republicans and Democrats alike view bilateral economic ties through a geopolitical lens.

It is not clear whether Trump merely precipitated a rupture that was already in the making. He is not responsible for President Xi Jinping’s authoritarian assertiveness, and he did not devise the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s massive transnational infrastructure and credit programme. But it was Trump who ditched Barack Obama’s carefully balanced China strategy in favour of a brutally adversarial stance that left no scope for events to take a different course. Whatever the cause of decoupling, there won’t be a return to the status quo.

A Biden administration would also not find it easy to reach the candidate’s aim of restoring ties with US allies, like-minded democracies, and partners around the world. Until Trump’s presidency, much of the world had become accustomed to regarding the US as the main architect of the international economic system. As Adam Posen, also of the Peterson Institute, has argued, the US was a sort of chair for life of a global club whose rules it had largely conceived but still had to abide by. The US could collect dues but was also bound by duties, and had to forge a consensus on amendments to the rules.

Trump’s trademark has been to reject this approach and treat all other countries as competitors, rivals or enemies, his overriding objective being to maximise the rent that the US can extract from its still-dominant economic position. America First epitomises his explicit promotion of a narrow definition of national interest.

Even if the US under Biden were willing to make again credible international commitments, its outlook may change lastingly. Former Trump adviser Nadia Schadlow has argued that Trump’s tenure will be remembered as the moment when the world pivoted away from a unipolar paradigm to one of great-power competition.

It is by no means obvious that if Biden wins, he will be able to restore the trust of America’s international partners. For all its aberrations, Trump’s presidency may indicate a deeper US reaction to the shift in global economic power, and reflect the American public’s rejection of the foreign responsibilities their country endorsed for three-quarters of a century. The old belief among US allies and economic partners that Americans will “ultimately do the right thing,” as Winston Churchill reputedly said, may be gone.

Anyhow, Trump’s peculiar behaviour has made it easy for America’s allies to postpone hard choices. That seems particularly true of Europe. A Biden-led US might seem like a familiar partner to most European leaders. But if it asked them to take sides in the confrontation with China, Europe would no longer be able to put off its own moment of decision.

Jean Pisani-Ferry holds the Tommaso Padoa Schioppa chair of the European University Institute in Florence and is a Senior Fellow at Bruegel, the European think tank. He is also a professor of economics with Sciences Po (Paris) and the Hertie School of Governance (Berlin).

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Last year, the U.S. exported $106 billion worth of goods to China. About $68 billion worth of those exports are covered in the Phase One deal, and China has agreed to purchase more than double that over the next two years.

Those include soybeans, cotton, lobsters, cars, crude oil, semiconductors, and more.

But what about the goods China won’t be buying more of? What about the other $38 billion worth of goods U.S. exporters normally sell to China?

The biggest items that were left out of the deal were civilian aircraft, engines, and parts, which the U.S. exported more than $10 billion worth of to China last year.

Other items—which may not grab headlines like soybean and corn sales—include optical equipment, motor vehicle parts, chemicals and plastics, platinum, scrap (paper, copper, aluminum), and other miscellaneous goods.

Nonetheless, those are goods Americans work hard to create and sell when and where they can.

The administration has given no indication of whether more purchases will be included in the second—Phase Two—deal with China. It has indicated that Phase Two is to include more structural issues, like dealing with China’s government support for its industries.

But even then, Phase Two negotiations are a long way off.

In fact, the administration isn’t even thinking about Phase Two right now.

That makes sense, given that Phase One was just signed in January. Negotiations will likely have to wait until 2021, and progress on Phase One is measurable. But it also means Americans will have to continuing paying high tariffs on imports from China.

The administration has said tariffs on $370 billion worth of imports from China will remain until Phase Two is finished.

But even then, the administration’s lead negotiator is no longer sure what the goal of the past three years of the U.S.-China trade war has become.

“I don’t know what the end goal is,” U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said. “Right now, we need to stop an aggressive force.”

At one time, the administration’s goal was closing the trade deficit with China, which is a dubious objective, given the value that both exports and imports bring to the U.S. economy.

It’s also a goal that hasn’t been met. After actually increasing in 2017-2018, the goods trade deficit with China in 2019 is about the same as it was in 2016. 

Nevertheless, if the administration wanted Bodog Poker the Chinese to buy more U.S. goods, why not ask them to buy more of all U.S. exports, instead of picking winners and losers?

Better yet, why not focus on the sort of structural trade liberalization in both the U.S. and China that would raise overall volumes of trade, a measure that has declined since 2016? 

Now that would be a Phase Two worth having.  

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On the outside, the United States remains the EU’s main trading partner, with European exports to the US last year amounting to 384 billion euros. The United States is also the second biggest provider of goods and services to Europe, after China.  However, by the close of 2019, most EU countries were already balancing between stagnation and recession – not least due to Washington’s economic policies, as the Trump administration kept threatening to slap additional duties on European exports. In addition, Europeans feel the pinch of declining world trade caused by Washington’s trade war with Beijing.

Donald Trump won the presidency on the strength of his promise to maintain America’s leading position in the world, which he sees as the scene of tooth-and-claw competition between states. From this standpoint, all countries not ready to accept Washington’s terms, especially those pursuing an independent policy, are viewed as a “legitimate” target for pressure, primarily an economic one. Since 2018, Washington has been ramping up sanctions and trade restrictions against many leading world powers, including in Europe and, hating as the Europeans are to avoid a politicization of their trade relations with the US, almost each new trade dispute demonstrates geopolitical undertones that are hard to ignore.  

For example, Washington regularly threatens to impose a 25 percent tax on imported European cars and spare parts, above all German.   Amid Washington’s isolationist policy, Germany is now seen by many Europeans as a potential new leader of the Western community and apparently the primary target of Donald Trump’s attacks against Europeans. Indeed, it was Angela Merkel who, after the first NATO summit attended by Trump, said that Europe can no longer rely on America. Since then, Berlin has been increasingly vocal in pointing, more than anyone else in the EU, at cardinal changes in Washington’s interests in the Old World, above all its desire to undermine Europe’s global competitiveness. On July 1, Germany took over the EU Council’s rotating chair for the next six months, which is likely to further intensify these disagreements.

In October 2019, the United States imposed tariffs on a number of imported European goods, formally justifying this by a WTO ruling that the European Union had not complied with an order to end illegal subsidies for its plane-maker Airbus.

The Americans and Europeans have long been at loggerheads over who violates the WTO rules by providing state assistance to their aviation industry. However, now that Washington is trying hard to limit the supply of high-tech products to the “wrong” countries, transatlantic bickering over subsidized airplane exports is becoming extremely important in terms of foreign policy. And in light of the colossal damage the global aviation industry may suffer as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, this could put the entire technological future of the European Union on the line. 

A similar situation has been developing also around the idea, actively promoted by the EU leadership and a number of EU countries, to impose the so-called “digital tax” on services provided to European consumers by major US technology companies, above all Amazon, Facebook and Google. Meanwhile, in the United States, the geostrategic motives behind the European initiatives is becoming clear not only to observers, but to the White House as well.

Europe is lagging far behind the US and China when it comes to companies providing services in social platforms, e-commerce and cloud computing. Experts warn that the “alternative” to the general strategy is more than just a further reduction of the EU’s role in the development and implementation of advanced software and technical solutions. If the EU countries fail to adapt to the changing technological paradigm, they may be faced with rising unemployment and falling tax revenues across the board. 

According to experts interviewed by The Economist Intelligence Unit, any of the abovementioned topics may set off a destructive trade war on both sides of the Atlantic. Well, Germany will certainly not be the sole victim of jacked up US tariffs on European car imports, as the auto industry accounts for up to six percent of all EU jobs. In addition to the direct damage from falling exports to the United States and third countries, new US sanctions would seriously undermine the overall business climate in the European Union. Brussels would have to impose retaliatory sanctions, which, in turn, would set the stage for a global trade war that would not leave any country untouched. The costs of doing business will go up, while profits will go down. Due to a falling demand in domestic markets, caused by the coronavirus pandemic, companies will not be able to pass their losses to the consumers, and will suffer ever new losses.

It took Europeans quite a while to realize that growing transatlantic disagreements “constitute an essential debate” over the priorities and goals of “Western policy in the world in the wake of the late 20^th – early 21^st century globalization.” A sizeable portion of the American establishment is no longer interested in dominance per se, as US national interests are now realized “in confrontation with major rivals,” including Europe. 

The Trump administration insists that the situation can only be changed by America acting in such a way as to reap direct and immediate benefits measured in dollars. “Friendship” with America should pay off right away, providing economic concessions for Washington is just a way of monetizing one’s allied relations with the United States. While during the Cold War, tactical economic differences were smoothed out by shared strategic interests amid a bipolar confrontation, these days, if “there are no shared  fundamental interests between them” the United States and Europe “are simply competitors on many tracks” – something Trump never tires of repeating.

The outbreak of the coronavirus epidemic has led to a serious new discord between Europe and America, with the shock from the pandemic on both sides of the Atlantic proving strong enough to force the nominal allies to start fighting each other for resources. Everyone is on his own now. The situation with the pandemic and its socio-economic impact on the United States has been so bad that it now threatens to undermine Donald Trump’s chances for reelection. Meanwhile, trade policy is one of the political levers that the US president can use quickly and without having to ask for Congressional approval.

Previously, this approach often worked with the European Union, usually ready to give up some of its economic sovereignty. The Europeans’ reaction was restrained and “asymmetric” in nature. This is how they reacted to Trump’s increasingly aggressive attacks just a year of two ago. Experts from the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Europe and on the INF Treaty believe that although the EU’s domestic market and combined GDP are roughly similar in size to America’s, “Europe’s economic dependence on the US is much higher than America’s dependence on the European Union, which still makes Brussels extremely vulnerable to economic pressure from Washington.” 

That being said, the hard-hitting socioeconomic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is forcing Europe to realize the need to protect and advance its economic interests. A pessimistic forecast is based on the notion that the pandemic will bring about a long-term economic downturn and even exacerbate it. The Eurozone economy is projected to post a seven to 10 percent drop this year – twice as much as during the crisis of 2009. Even the “hundreds of billions of euros” that European politicians are talking about may not be enough to overcome the consequences of the coronacrisis any time soon, largely due to the global nature of its impact on the entire system of global economic relations. This may prove a serious problem. As [French President] Emmanuel Macron often says, “If the crisis widens the split between the economies of the bloc, the European project could explode.”

Meanwhile, much now depends on the position of Germany where almost all parliamentary factions see the threat of new US sanctions as “a violation of international law and, above all, an infringement of European sovereignty.” Europe needs to push back against America’s “aggressive attacks.” Well, in the midst of a pandemic and a deep recession caused by it, “a trade war is the last thing that Americans and Europeans need. However, a positive partnership is possible only on an equal basis which, among other things, means respect for the sovereignty of each partner.”

Against the backcloth of extremely worrying forecasts for the European economy, Chancellor Angela Merkel told The Guardian that it is in the best interest of all EU countries to fully support the European domestic market and act as one in the international arena. Faced with “extraordinary” circumstances, Berlin expects all EU member states to focus on “what brings us together.” Moreover, “much” depends on the stability of the European economy. For example, a sharp spike in unemployment can have devastating political consequences, and even “increase the threat to democracy.”

“For Europe to survive, its economy must survive,” Merkel emphasized.

According to numerous forecasts, in the post-coronavirus world, almost all countries will focus on internal problems, on increasing their economic self-sufficiency and even autonomy. The world may become “poorer bodog sportsbook review and more cost-effective,” and the process of globalization will, at best, come to a halt and stay so for several years. Right now, faced with multiple crises, Europe, may be tempted to take its time and wait, at least until after the November presidential elections in the US. By then, the scope of the economic damage from the pandemic will become clearer. What is obvious, however, is that only by resolutely standing up to America, especially if this resistance ultimately results in a “deal” more beneficial to Europeans, will the EU be able to restore its geopolitical weight in international affairs.

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At the outset of his Administration, President Trump withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and stated his preference for bilateral trade deals, not multilateral agreements. In three and a half years, the Trump Administration has negotiated:

1. A market access agreement with Japan, signed in 2019, on “certain agriculture and industrial goods, as well as on digital trade”.[1]
2. Phase One of an agreement with China, signed in 2020. China is implementing some of the provisions of the Agreement but its purchases of U.S. products have fallen short of the agreed targets. Geo-political issues now threaten the full implementation of Phase One’s goals.  
3. A revision in 2019 of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the Republic of Korea that included restrictions on Korean steel exports, an extension of protection for U.S. truck manufacturers, a Korean commitment to double its imports of U.S. cars that meet U.S. safety standards, and other measures.
4. A market access agreement on U.S. exports of poultry meat and products to Morocco, a country with which the U.S. already has a FTA.
5. A market access agreement with Tunisia on U.S. beef, poultry, and egg exports.

The U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) also commenced bilateral trade negotiations with the UK and the EU, and announced its intention to negotiate an FTA with Kenya.[2] U.S. and UK negotiators have made some progress, but completing the negotiation and securing Congressional approval of a U.S.-UK FTA before the end of this year appears unlikely. The negotiations with the EU have stalled.[3] A negotiation on a bilateral agreement with Kenya is just getting underway.[4]

The Administration did update the NAFTA in a trilateral negotiation with Canada and Mexico. The USMCA added significant provisions on e-commerce, SMEs, labor, and the environment, drawing on the text of the TPP to cover trade issues that had arisen since the negotiation of the NAFTA in the 1990s.  It also weakened dispute settlement mechanisms and added provisions intended to manage trade in the automotive sector. The USMCA entered into force on July 1, 2020.

Recourse to protectionism has been another hallmark of the Trump Administration’s trade policy. In January 2018, Trump imposed tariffs on solar panels (30%) and washing machines (50%). In March 2018, he imposed tariffs on steel (25%) and aluminum (10%) from most U.S. trading partners. Months later, the Administration extended the steel and aluminum tariffs to the EU, Canada, and Mexico. However, the Administration did agree to exemptions for Canada and Mexico in May 2019.[5]

The most important protectionist measures were those directed toward China. The escalation of tensions with China began in July 2018, with a 25% import tariff levied on $34 billion of Chinese products. By the beginning of 2020, before the Phase One deal was signed, tit-for-tat tariffs had resulted in over $360 billion of Chinese products facing higher tariffs, about two-thirds of the total value of U.S. imports from China. China had placed retaliatory tariffs on a combined $110 billion of imports from the United States. Until now, the United States has unilaterally imposed trade and investment restrictions on China and will, in all likelihood, continue to do so. However, in late June, Secretary of State Pompeo did indicate a willingness to join a joint EU-U.S. dialogue with China.[6]

Retaliation by the EU, China, and other countries targeted by U.S. trade restrictions has already posed serious barriers to some U.S. exports. Undeterred, the Administration is now considering another round of tariff increases directed at the EU and has threatened to break Phase One commitments by imposing further tariffs on China in response to what Trump views as mismanagement of the coronavirus outbreak. It is unlikely that the two countries will be able to reach this year a Phase Two agreement that would include state owned enterprises and intellectual property.

The tariffs placed on China in addition to the others imposed by the Trump Administration have resulted in U.S. importers paying $147.7 billion in customs duties to the U.S. Treasury since January 2018, in effect, a tax on U.S. consumption.[7] To offset the declines in U.S. exports resulting from retaliation, the Trump Administration paid over $22 billion to farmers in 2019, the highest farm subsidy total in 14 years.[8] Driving these payments were trade-related subsidies, which accounted for $14 billion of the total. The Administration has recently shown its willingness to expand aid by the Department of Agriculture to additional U.S. producers. Last month, for example, the Administration laid out its plan to help lobster producers offset damages related to trade tensions with China.[9] 

The Trump Administration’s pursuit of limited bilateral agreement is at odds with the worldwide growth of FTAs since 2000. We highlighted increases in the number of FTAs in our 2018 post in WITA’s “America’s Trade Policy.”[10] In that analysis of FTA trends, we found that the six most important U.S. trading partners had negotiated and signed 95 FTAs through 2017. Those countries have continued to negotiate new trade agreements. Since the beginning of 2018, Australia, Canada, Mexico, and Japan have each signed two FTAs, China has signed four, and the EU has signed three. As the updated chart below shows, the total number of FTAs signed by those six nations now stands at 101. Meanwhile, the U.S. has only signed one FTA since 2017, the USMCA, a revision of the NAFTA. The U.S. has not negotiated a new FTA since 2007.

It is important to note that FTAs cover substantially all mutual trade of the signatories under GATT Article XXIV. The FTAs signed by the EU and the other five countries shown in the chart meet the GATT Article XXIV standard. In contrast, the Trump Administration’s market access agreements do not, as they cover only specific industries or products.

Ambassador Lighthizer has defended the Trump Administration’s emphasis on bilateral agreements despite the paucity of results to date. He has also complained about the acceleration of the EU’s FTA negotiations.[11] In his critique of EU trade policy, Ambassador Lighthizer claimed that the EU now has 77 different free trade agreements that offer tariff rates lower than those that result from the “most favored nation” rules of the World Trade Organization. The EU does indeed have a variety of trade agreements, but many of them do not meet the GATT Article XXIV standard. The EU has signed 39 FTAs that do meet that standard. For the most part, the other “Partnership and Cooperation” agreements are limited in scope but they do provide a general framework for trade.[12]

Many countries bear the responsibility for the failure over the past twenty years to conclude multilateral trade negotiations within the framework of the WTO. That absence of multilateral trade negotiations opened the door to the proliferation of FTAs, which have the potential to divert trade from third countries to producers in the FTA member nations. The Trump Administration’s rejection of multilateral agreements, its imposition of protective trade barriers, and its concentration on bilateral agreements did nothing to forestall the negotiation by other nations of FTAs that will hamper U.S. exports to those markets.

Guy Erb is a former U.S. trade policy official and investment banker, with experience in financial and trade advisory services and international organizations.

Scott Sommers is a Consultant with Berkeley Research Group and an incoming PhD student in Economics at the University of Minnesota.

[1] “Fact Sheet on U.S.-Japan Trade Agreement.” United States Trade Representative, 25 Sept. 2019, ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/fact-sheets/2019/september/fact-sheet-us-japan-trade-agreement.

[2] www.USTR.gov, accessed June 23, 2020.

[3] “Bad News for U.S.-EU Talks: What Lighthizer has to Say,” https://www.politico.com/newsletters/morning-trade/2020/06/10/oecd-global-economy-on-tightrope-walk-to-recovery-788393. Accessed June 6, 2020.

[4] “April Deadline Looms over Kenya Talks,” https://politico.com/morningtrade Accessed July 9, 2020.

[5] Swanson, Ana. “Trump Lifts Metal Tariffs and Delays Auto Levies, Limiting Global Trade Fight.” The New York Times, 17 May 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/05/17/us/politics/china-auto-tariffs-donald-trump.html.

[6] “Pompeo says U.S. ready to team up on China, but E.U. eyes a post-Trump world,” Politico, 25 May 2020,

https://www.politico.eu/article/pompeo-says-us-ready-to-team-up-on-china-but-eu-eyes-a-post-trump-world. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/25/pompeo-says-us-ready-to-team-up-on-china-but-eu-eyes-a-post-trump-world-340103

[7] Table 7, Receipts and Outlays of the U.S. Government by Month.  U.S. Department of the Treasury Monthly Treasury Statement Reports, FY 2017-2019. https://www.fiscal.treasury.gov/reports-statements/mts/previous.html

[8] Charles, Dan. “Farmers Got Billions From Taxpayers In 2019, And Hardly Anyone Objected.” NPR, NPR, 31 Dec. 2019, www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/12/31/790261705/farmers-got-billions-from-taxpayers-in-2019-and-hardly-anyone-objected.

[9] Leary, Alex. “Trump Establishes Payment Program to Help Lobster Industry.” The Wall Street Journal, 25 June 2020, www.wsj.com/articles/trump-establishes-payment-program-to-help-lobster-industry-11593044444.

[10] “Losing Ground: The United States, Free Trade Areas, and the World Trade Organization,” WITA, America’s Trade Policy, http://americastradepolicy.com/losing-ground-the-united-states-free-trade-areas-and-the-world-trade-organization/#.WusNVDbrtjV.

[11] “Bad News for U.S.-EU Talks: What Lighthizer Has to Say,” https://www.politico.com/newsletters/morning-trade/2020/06/10/oecd-global-economy-on-tightrope-walk-to-recovery-788393. Accessed June 6, 2020.

[12] “European Commission Directorate-General for Trade.” Negotiations and Agreements – Trade – European Commission, European Union, 12 May 2020, ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/countries-and-regions/negotiations-and-agreements/.

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Historically, Europe’s trade policy served both Europe’s commercial and political interests. While strategic autonomy is emerging as a guiding principle for Europe’s international leadership, it remains relatively unclear what it actually means for Europe’s trade policy. The way Europe trades internationally affects the future of global capitalism as well as the geopolitical landscape. Therefore, if the EU is serious about “strategic autonomy” and “economic sovereignty,” Brussels should establish a clear and coherent understanding of what these concepts mean.

The EU and its institutional predecessors used to approach trade policy strategically. In the post-war reconstruction era, the European Common Market was created to achieve political stability through economic interdependence. External tariffs were deemed necessary to ensure the post-war resurgence of Europe’s economy as well as the objective of European economic integration—the internally free common market.

Albeit sometimes grudgingly, the United States accepted European tariffs, since the European economic bloc was central to the US Cold War strategy of containment. In other words, the European common market, even when off-limits to US exporters, served American geopolitical interests.

After the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States and Europe together pursued the objective of global economic interdependence. The European internal market opened up to many more imports from developing countries. In some regards, it was an effort to copy the political success of European economic integration on a worldwide scale. If all countries of the world were to become part of a single, integrated market, there would be no more separated markets to fight each other. By integrating Europe’s post-communist economies and Asian communist economies, former political adversaries would become partners, perhaps even democracies. Global economic interdependence can thus be seen as the Western post-Cold War grand strategy; Europe’s trade policy was a key instrument to achieve that global interdependence.

The EU designation of China as a “systemic rival” as well as the United States’ view of China as a “strategic competitor” signal the demise of global economic interdependence as a key strategic approach. In fact, a more fragmented economic landscape may result from the US-Chinese trade wars and the debate about decoupling. Considerations about economic security and “great power competition” have a strong influence on the contemporary US approach to trade. A similarly coherent European geopolitical perspective is still in evolution, but there is a consensus that the EU should become “strategically autonomous.”

In the wake of Donald Trump’s 2016 election, the term “strategic autonomy” was mostly associated with Europe’s security and defence policy ambitions. But an expected fall in European defense expenditure may forestall the EU’s strategic autonomy in military affairs. Instead, the EU has now started to debate economic, technological, and industrial strategic autonomy, extending this concept to fields not directly associated with “hard” security.

EU foreign direct investment (FDI) screening and INSTEX are early indications of how the European quest for—economic—”strategic autonomy” may concretely play out. Since 2017, the EU has been rolling out measures to screen and control foreign investment, a policy spurred by concerns about Chinese investments in European infrastructure and high-tech. The reach of the EU’s FDI screening mechanism nonetheless remains modest compared to the  Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States (CFIUS). Furthermore, following the imposition of unilateral US sanctions on Iran in 2018, several European countries set up INSTEX to work around the US dollar and US secondary sanctions.

However, the current coronavirus crisis truly spurred Europe’s thinking about economic strategic autonomy. French President Emmanuel Macron insists that “we must rebuild our French agricultural, sanitary, industrial, and technological independence and more European strategic autonomy.” EU’s Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan underscores the need for strategic autonomy, pointing out that “we need to look at how to build resilient supply chains, based on diversification.” And Dutch Foreign Trade Minister Sigrid Kaag wondered out loud “how can you mitigate the overdependence on countries such as China or India when it comes to essential goods?”

In reaction to emerging geopolitical challenges Europe’s trade policy has entered a new phase. During the Cold War, Europe was mainly focused upon constructing its own market behind tariff walls. During the post-Cold War era, the EU sought global economic interdependence led by multilateral institutions. Now international uncertainties are increasing, the EU seems to turn to economic “strategic autonomy.” It remains to be seen how that will play out, both for the EU as well as for the global economy. The EU should define a coherent set of strategic principles that will guide both its security policy and its trade policy, which will increasingly overlap.

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