bodog sportsbook review alongside other EV‐related provisions in IRA is one that makes generous purchase subsidies, aimed at promoting transition from gas‐powered to electric vehicles, available only in respect of EVs assembled in North America. This incentive is delivered through the tax system rather than at point‐of‐ sale as in the case of the 2009 “Cash for Clunkers” program, but it changes a vehicle’s effective purchase price on a dollar‐for‐dollar basis.

This measure is quite explicitly WTO‐inconsistent. It violates National Treatment (GATT Art. III) as it accords to imported EVs treatment less favorable than that accorded to like domestically‐assembled EVs. It violates MFN (GATT Art. I) as it accords to EVs assembled in the territory of other WTO Members treatment less favorable than that accorded to EVs assembled in Canada/Mexico. And in regard to the WTO’s subsidy rules, it makes access to a consumption subsidy contingent on the purchaser choosing a domestically‐assembled rather than imported EV; this is one of two types of subsidies that WTO rules categorically prohibit.

US officials may believe that these discriminatory aspects were necessary politically, in order to get an EV incentive passed. That argument may get some (limited) traction in the court of public opinion, but it will be useless in the event of a legal challenge if the United States seeks to justify its GATT breaches by invoking GATT Art. XX. Compressing the analysis quite a bit, the core problem is that the nationality-based element makes this measure a less, not more, potent consumer incentive for transitioning to EVs. It therefore interferes with, rather than being essential to, the articulated US objective of spurring transition. So even if the EV measure could be provisionally justified under one of the GATT Art. XX indents (not guaranteed), it would plainly fail the test imposed by the GATT Art. XX chapeau. The nationality‐based trade‐restrictive element is not only unnecessary; alternative measures lacking this element would contribute more strongly to meeting the claimed objective.

These WTO legal considerations were and are well‐known to the officials who worked on the IRA in the administration and on Capitol Hill. They did not blunder into a WTO breach. During prior U.S. government cycles, enactment of such a provision would have been hugely improbable. Chairs, Ranking Minority Members and Committee Staff at the Senate Finance and House Ways & Means committees have always regarded it as their obligation to call out, and try to purge, any WTO‐inconsistent elements of pending legislation long before the time of floor consideration. When WTO‐inconsistent proposals have somehow worked their way into bills that cleared one or both chambers, that fact has ordinarily been considered to justify a veto threat or a veto. As a result, it has long been possible to proudly observe that the United States does not knowingly and intentionally put new WTO‐breaching legislation into effect. It might sound mundane, not a proper subject for giving out medals, but this is in fact one of the key ways that international trade agreements deliver value over time to the countries that have negotiated and approved them. The agreements act as a filter on new measures and help to ensure that applied trade policies at the national level generally evolve in a liberal, rather than illiberal, direction.

That didn’t happen here. The EV provisions in question were largely authored by Majority committee staff in consultation with administration officials. The filters not only didn’t filter; they wrote the bill.

You don’t have to feel any particular way about climate change, or about government leadership in promoting an EV transition, to appreciate that this is significant.

No national public conversation has ever occurred in America about carbon control and the WTO. In the commentariat, some have long insisted that WTO rules were incompatible with timely/effective carbon control action, and would have to be either rewritten or simply breached. Others have contended that it makes sense to discover how much effective action we can achieve WTO‐consistently, and negotiate internationally for additional “policy space” only if events prove that to be necessary. One could imagine a US administration using its convening and bully pulpit powers to turn that academic debate into something larger and more accessible … with a view to achieving at least more predictability and ideally some level of public understanding and acceptance.

Again, that didn’t happen here. If Congress even momentarily considered WTO‐consistent EV incentives, it left no record of that consideration. The same is true of the administration. The result was a knowing, explicit, legislated breach of the WTO’s most central non‐discrimination obligations.

Could this really be worse than what happened during the USG’s last cycle? Let’s compare. Apart from periodic Presidential insults and tweeted ad hominem attacks, WTO supporters had three main grievances.

The US administration implemented Section 232 import relief on steel/aluminum and when challenged at the WTO invoked a GATT Art. XXI defense; many saw the latter as a clearly unacceptable stretch of the national security exception. The US administration also asserted that access to the GATT Art. XXI defense is self‐judging; while this stance reflected longstanding conventional wisdom, at least in the United States, some WTO supporters saw actually articulating it before a panel as an “anti‐WTO” thing to do.

Comment: With the “self‐judging” argument having been rejected in a separate WTO case, the US 232 measures may be held ineligible for a GATT Art. XXI defense. How the United States responds in that scenario could have systemic implications. The acts already taken – applying 232 measures, invoking GATT Art. XXI, and contending that a GATT Art. XXI claim is non‐justiciable – are not especially harmful to the WTO itself and do not reflect a high level of disrespect for the Organization’s rules. Also, this whole endeavor was a purely administrative action by the United States, attracting much more opposition than support on Capitol Hill. (And it has been left in place, which by now means affirmatively embraced, by the current US administration.)

The US administration implemented Section 301 tariffs on products from China, consciously exceeding tariff bindings (hence breaching WTO rules) with respect to products of that country.

Comment: I look at this as taking a bilateral fight out to the parking lot, with the result (among other things) that there ought to be less damage to breakable furnishings inside the building. It is unfortunate that things have deteriorated so significantly, but there was not a particularly WTO‐friendly path for this confrontation to follow. The US‐China trade relationship is effectively no longer WTO‐based. The possibility that would happen to a particular bilateral relationship has always existed – see the Uruguay Round Statement of Administrative Action on Section 301(b) – and indeed is baked into the WTO treaty structure which recognizes that any Member can breach particular obligations and accept WTO authorized countermeasures of equivalent commercial effect. No country would have joined a WTO which did not, or purported not to, allow such tactics. The US administration did not contend that its actions were WTO‐consistent, and therefore did not express disrespect for (any or all of) the WTO’s substantive rules. Also, and again, this whole endeavor was and remains a purely administrative action.

My purpose here is not to try to get inside anyone’s head and, for example, compare one US President’s actual quantum of respect for the WTO (and its rules) with another’s. Rather, the point is that objectively, the US government as a whole has now inflicted more damage on the WTO in the current cycle. Public comment so far (scant as noted above) has tended to focus on the combination, i.e., the fact that the current USG has both embraced the WTO‐disrespecting actions of the prior one and enacted the EV provision. They see this as signaling that parochialism in US trade policy is not temporary and that statements of American dedication to multilateralism cannot be relied upon.

I think this account, accurate enough in its punch‐line, understates the EV provision’s significance. Yes, disrespect for international obligations was already above historical norms, but the EV provision represents what Bridge players call a jump‐shift. Unlike prior US actions, it is a body‐blow to the WTO for many reasons but two especially: (1) because it was consciously enacted by the USG’s two political branches acting in concert, and (2) because it so clearly signals that the USG does not consider WTO-consistency as a relevant filter when new policy and legislation are being developed. Nothing we might do (or might have done) administratively in regard to AB appointments, or in regard to a particular bilateral trade relationship, or in regard to “national security”‐based trade restrictions in a couple of sectors, could be as systemically impactful.

That the offending measure is an environmental one should not make WTO supporters (among whom I count myself) any less concerned. The WTO rules pertinent to behind‐the‐border measures apply to – and codify guardrails for – environmental just as much as other types of measures. Environmentally themed protectionism is not necessarily more virtuous than other sorts of protectionism. Most important, WTO‐indifference displayed in one context cannot easily be limited to that context; it broadcasts a wider message. A WTO whose core substantive rules a major founding Member displays no compunction about explicitly violating, in enacting new legislation, is a WTO with little potential to deliver value by shaping national behavior.

WTO flouting of course has never been an exclusively American pastime, and just during the time period being discussed there have been some priceless non‐US examples. In a world where the United States can get blamed for just about anything regardless of its actual degree of responsibility, one hears charges that the national officials involved were simply walking through a door that America had swung open. If you subscribe to that narrative, then you should be especially worried because with the EV provision we have now quadrupled the width of that open door.

John is a 33 year veteran trade professional whose client and academic work focuses on US trade policy and WTO rules. He is currently the President of TradeWins LLC.

The opinions expressed are his own and do not reflect the views or interests of any of his clients or the Washington International Trade Association.

This piece originally appeared at the IELP blog, linked here.

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For starters, the new agreement doesn’t even touch the Section 232 tariffs on aluminum from Japan, nor does it actually eliminate Trump’s steel tariffs. Instead, the deal simply replaces the steel tariffs with a complex “tariff rate quota” (TRQ) system, under which 1.25 million metric tons (MMT) of Japanese steel — applied to 54 different product categories on a first‐​come, first served quarterly basis (with little period‐​to‐​period flexibility) — will be allowed to enter the United States tariff‐​free. Any Japanese imports above that amount will remain subject to the existing 25%, “national security” tariffs.

Given the quota amount and design, moreover, it’s quite likely that significant volumes of Japanese steel will still face — and American importers will thus keep paying — U.S. tariffs. Most obviously, the 1.25 MMT quota limit has been set well below pre‐​tariff volumes and even further below the amounts that would likely enter the U.S. today in the absence of any trade restrictions. According to my former colleagues at the law firm of White & Case, for example, Japanese steel imports “averaged approximately 2.03 MMT during the pre‐​duty 2015–2017 period” — a period that was experiencing far less industrial demand than today. Thus, the new TRQ level is, at best, set at a paltry 61% of current U.S. market demand and probably much lower than that. As we explained with the EU agreement, the U.S.-Japan deal will therefore keep U.S. steel prices high, leaving steel‐​consuming American manufacturers Bodog Poker at a significant disadvantage versus their global competitors. Indeed, the EU deal has now been in place several weeks, and U.S.hot-rolled steel prices are still far higher than prices in Europe and elsewhere:

White & Case further notes that the Japan agreement is actually more restrictive than the EU deal because it likely will count Japanese steel currently excluded from the Section 232 tariffs against the new TRQ limits. (The EU deal expressly exempted these imports from the TRQs, meaning more duty‐​free European imports overall.) The tariff‐​supporting Steel Manufacturers Association naturally celebrated this provision, noting that 550,000 metric tons of steel products — almost half of the new TRQ — entered under an exclusion last year. Once you factor in this already‐​excluded steel, the Japan deal’s tariff liberalization — and thus its effect on U.S. prices and relief for U.S. manufacturers — becomes even more modest.

The quota’s design, which essentially mirrors the EU agreement, will further limit this tariff relief. As we discussed in November, for example, “TRQs administered in this fashion are sure to introduce distortions, for example, large U.S. importers stockpiling early in a quarter and paying higher prices to do so.” According to the Coalition of American Metal Manufacturers, this very problem has already emerged with the U.S.-EU agreement: “some steel products’ quota filled up for the year in the first two weeks of January,” and so they now worry that the Japan deal will “lead to market manipulations and allow for gaming of the system that puts this country’s smallest manufacturers at an even further disadvantage.” Other concerns with the EU system, such as its “melted and poured” rule for qualifying products, are also present in the new Japan agreement.

So, for those who support free markets and the removal of U.S. trade barriers, the Biden administration basically took a bad trade deal and made it even worse.

Finally, the new Japan agreement once again shows the emptiness of the United States’ “national security” justifications for these tariffs — the term isn’t even mentioned in the official documentation — and of the Biden campaign’s promise to improve U.S. foreign policy and heal Trump‐​era tensions with major allies. As has been widely reported, the Japanese government sought the Section 232 tariffs’ complete removal, which President Biden could achieve with the stroke of a pen. They still don’t seem to be thrilled with this deal, but apparently figure that a little liberalization — and some sweet quota rents for Japanese steelmakers — is better than nothing. If fixing obvious and absurd Trump‐​era wrongs to critical regional allies were really more important to the White House than placating U.S. steel companies and unions, the president would have removed the tariffs entirely. He didn’t.

So much for national security.

Scott Lincicome is the director of general economics and Cato’s Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies.

To read the full commentary from the CATO Institute, please click here. 

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Domestic jobs and manufacturing have been a recurring theme for the Biden administration, as part of an agenda to “rebuild the middle class.” In its review of critical supply chains, the administration floated a proposal to offer higher rebates for electric vehicles produced with high labor standards in the United States (p. 137) and suggested a push for the Department of Energy to boost “domestic manufacturing requirements for grants, cooperative agreements and R&D contracts” (p. 145); it tasked the U.S. Export-Import Bank “to support the establishment and/or expansion of U.S. manufacturing facilities and infrastructure projects in the United States that would support U.S. exports” (p. 14); and it hinted at several other measures to support local jobs and domestic manufacturing.

The proposed Build Back Better Act offers higher credits to electric vehicles assembled in the United States. There is a baseline credit, depending on the battery capacity and the year the vehicle was placed into the service, for up to $7,500. But there are two more credits: a $4,500 credit “if the final assembly of the vehicle is at a facility in the United States which operates under a union-negotiated collective bargaining agreement,” and a $500 credit “if the vehicle model is assembled by a manufacturer which utilizes no less than 50% domestic content in component parts of such vehicles and such vehicles are powered by battery cells which are manufactured within the United States.” So 40 percent of the maximum proposed credit for electric vehicles is linked to the location and labor practices of production.

There is a similar provision for renewable energy projects under the Investment Tax Credit and Production Tax Credit covering wind, solar, geothermal, and several other technologies. All these investments enjoy a baseline and a bonus credit “for projects which meet certain prevailing wage and apprenticeship requirements the facility meets. Both of these credits are raised if the facility meets the thresholds for domestic content (defined as: “if not less than 55% of the total cost of the components of such product is attributable to components which are mined, produced, or manufactured in the United States”). Here too, there is a clear effort to incentivize domestic manufacturing of components for renewable energy.

In the past, such measures have run afoul of WTO rules. One of the first cases, in 2010, that the United States brought against China related to low-carbon energy challenged China’s wind power equipment fund, which offered higher subsidies to projects with domestic components. In 2013, the United States challenged India at the WTO for a similar provision in India’s “National Solar Mission.” Other countries have brought similar cases and generally prevailed. Treating domestic and foreign suppliers evenly is one of the foundations of the WTO, and domestic content provisions have often been found to violate WTO rules.

Adding domestic content provisions to the Build Back Better Act could well spark a new round of trade conflicts. This will happen at a moment when the trade-climate agenda is already under strain. The European Union’s carbon border adjustment mechanism is also likely to be litigated. And the United States is opening a new front in trade tensions with China as it begins to seize solar products tied to forced labor. bodog poker review If anything, we can expect the trade-energy-climate nexus to become thicker and more complicated.

The provisions in the Build Back Better Act expose an inherent and growing tension in climate politics: governments around the world are using the promise of job creation as a basis for upping their ambition. Without measures to ensure that some benefits accrue visibly at home, rather than abroad, how are voters to support policies that might raise costs and lower competitiveness? For the past 15 years, the world has benefited immensely from global supply chains for solar, wind, and batteries, which helped bring down costs. Without global supply chains, costs will not fall as fast; with global supply chains, the domestic push for higher ambition might be tempered as benefits accrue overseas.

The point here is not that the Biden administration and Congress should not advance and favor domestic manufacturing— they should. In this case, they could advance alternate approaches, like subsidizing investment in domestic plant and equipment, to achieve a similar end without sparking a trade dispute. The more important task is for the Biden administration to offer a coherent theory for balancing the need for domestic jobs and manufacturing with a WTO system that is designed to clamp down on such practices. The administration has often said that the trade agenda must align with the imperative of climate change, but so far, it has nothing concrete on how to reconcile the two.

Nikos Tsafos is James R. Schlesinger Chair for Energy and Geopolitics with the Energy Security and Climate Change Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

To read the full commentary from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, please click here.

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American ports and rail terminals are struggling to cope with unprecedented surges of imports from Asia, a situation likely to continue into next year and contributing to both American companies’ supply chain woes and broader inflationary pressures. Shipping containers are piling up by the thousands, leading to port delays, higher shipping costs (both ocean and inland freight), and U.S. exporters – mainly of agricultural products – lacking the empty containers they need to send their goods abroad. Importers, meanwhile, are especially reeling. Firms like the Columbia Sportswear Company, Whirlpool, and Peloton have gone on the record about rising shipping costs and struggles to meet consumer demand. Small businesses are being hit particularly hard, facing the decision to pay three times the typical shipping rate for products that are unlikely to arrive in months. And peak shipping season has just begun. The disruption is such that the CEO of the American Apparel Association even urged consumers to do their Christmas shopping in the summer.

(Sorry, fellow procrastinators.)

Surely, a lot of the problem here is just the global pandemic – for example, a surge of Asian‐​made consumer goods to meet an unexpected spike in U.S. demand, combined with still‐​muted demand for U.S. products in countries with relatively few vaccinations – doing its thing. Until COVID-19 is under control around the world, supply chain hiccups (and more) will persist. Thus, many of these issues will simply take time to work themselves out – regardless of what the politicians might promise.

However, U.S. trade policy is also likely contributing to the current shipping crunch. In particular, the United States earlier this year imposed extremely high “trade remedy” duties on imports of truck chassis (which are used to haul containerized merchandise around the country) originating in China – by far the largest producer of such products. The duties resulted from antidumping (AD) and countervailing duty (CVD) investigations launched last year by the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) and Department of Commerce (DOC), the latter of which calculated for chassis produced by China International Marine Chassis (CIMC), the world’s largest chassis manufacturer, combined final duty of 221.37 percent (177.05 percent AD and 44.32 percent CVD). These estimated AD/CVD measures now apply to any Chinese chassis imports that have entered the from March 4 on. And they apply on top of the 25 percent tariffs that President Trump imposed on a wide range of Chinese imports in a separate “Section 301” case back in 2018.

(We say “estimated” duty rates here because, as discussed previously, the U.S. trade remedies system’s novel “retrospective” approach requires duties to be (1) adjusted periodically for imports that entered the United States during a previous period and (2) then assessed on those imports at the new, recalculated rate once the review is completed years later. This approach creates an additional “uncertainty disincentive” – as if a 221 percent duty weren’t enough! – to import from subject countries and companies. That said, usually rates change modestly during these reviews, so it’s unlikely that the current duty rates on Chinese chassis imports will be substantially lower anytime soon.)

According to importers and industry‐​watchers, these duties are undoubtedly affecting the U.S. shipping market for two reasons:

• First, chassis available to U.S. freighters have been “stretched to [the] limit” in recent months at most of the biggest transit hubs in the country, including the ports of Los Angeles/​Long Beach and New York/​New Jersey, and rail terminals in Dallas, Chicago, St. Louis, and elsewhere. Major chassis providers like TRAC Intermodal have also reported shortages in regions like the Seattle‐​Tacoma area and throughout the Midwest, where this situation is especially sensitive. Indeed, back in July, chassis shortages contributed to creating a clog of shipments in Chicago that forced Union Pacific and BNSF Railway, two of the largest railroad companies in the country, to temporarily restrict shipments from ports in the West Coast to said hub. As one recent report put it, “[s]hipments from Asia to the U.S. are experiencing extreme difficulties in getting their cargo delivered, mainly due to the acute shortage of chassis to effect delivery of their containers on the U.S. side.” (emphasis ours)
• Second, there simply isn’t enough non‐​China chassis capacity to meet current U.S. demand. In particular, CIMC can produce 40,000–50,000 units per year, while the five North American chassis manufacturers that requested the U.S. AD/CVD investigations have admitted that it would take them “at least six to nine months” to increase their production to only 10,000–15,000 annual units, and that they would not be able to fulfill new orders until 2022. Refurbishing old chassis, moreover, isn’t possible because every usable unit in the country is being employed because of the current shortages.

As a result of these two market realities, the new U.S. duties will do only two things, neither of which is good for the U.S. shipping crunch: (1) further discourage importers and freighters from bringing new capacity online (thus maintaining the chassis shortage and related shipping bottlenecks); and/​or (2) dramatically raise shipping costs, as freighters (importers, ocean carriers, truckers, etc.) suck it up and just buy Chinese chassis then pass on those costs to their customers. On the latter point, freight companies estimate that the new duties alone will add more than $25,000 to the price of each chassis they buy, effectively tripling their price. None of this is good for shipping‐​reliant U.S. companies (or consumers) and current inflationary concerns – especially when these higher inland freight costs are combined with higher ocean freight costs brought on by the pandemic.

As one U.S. trucking company representative put it when the new duties were finalized this Spring, “The timing couldn’t be worse.”

Why, then, did the U.S. government (DOC/ITC) not take these unique factors into account when determining whether to apply the new duties? Why not perhaps hold off on implementing them, at least until the shipping crunch abates next year? Given that ports are likely to be jammed up for the foreseeable future and chassis pools are already stretched thin, it would make sense for the government to let freighters purchase additional units of chassis at relatively competitive prices, thereby easing the current chassis shortages, reducing the “detention and demurrage fees” (for holding goods until equipment becomes available) that U.S. consumers are already bearing, and alleviating some of the brutal price pressures and bottlenecks in the current domestic shipping market. Such results would surely be in the national economic interest.

They would also be consistent with the Biden administration’s own stated priorities in the shipping sector. In particular, President Biden issued a July 9 Executive Order targeting (among other things) the very “detention and demurrage” fees that may be exacerbated by a lack of available chassis to transport incoming shipments from ports to their inland destinations. The Federal Maritime Commission is also now fielding a complaint by the American Truckers Association over alleged anti‐​competitive practices by ocean liners and chassis providers to restrict truckers’ choice over chassis to haul shipments.

Holding off on the new chassis duties thus seems like a total no‐​brainer, right?

Alas, as discussed previously U.S. law prohibits the DOC and ITC from taking these important economic and policy issues into account when determining whether to apply trade remedy measures on subject imports. Instead, the U.S. system effectively runs on autopilot, delivering rents to a small number of well‐​connected firms and labor unions regardless of current market conditions or how an agency decision might affect the long‐​term health of the U.S. economy or other domestic policy priorities. Many other national trade remedy systems have just this type of “public interest” test; the United States unfortunately does not. And it’s undoubtedly a big reason why we’re one of the biggest users of AD/CVD measures in the world.

To be clear, none of this means that the Chinese government’s subsidization of domestic firms like CIMC must be condoned or ignored. And the United States, just like all other World Trade Organization members, has the right to use its trade remedy system to offset injury to domestic firms caused by dumped or subsidized imports (though of course we at Cato have long complained about these laws’ merits and implementation). But a system that requires U.S. administering agencies to blindly enact 221 percent tariffs (on top of 25 percent tariffs already in place!) on badly needed chassis, while the economy reels from a massive shock to the global and U.S. shipping systems caused by a once‐​in‐​a‐​generation pandemic, makes zero sense – especially when it contradicts the White House’s own economic priorities. Moreover, chassis are relatively unsophisticated pieces of equipment, not jet fighters or nuclear reactors that might possibly raise credible national security concerns that warrant trade restrictions regardless of their economic costs.

A sane trade remedy system would allow for these and other considerations and permit the administering agencies to reduce, delay, or decline to impose duties where doing so would be in the public interest – for example during a shipping crisis that’s hindering the economic recovery and adding to already‐​serious inflationary pressures.

Alas, the United States has no such thing.

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To read the original commentary from New Republic, please visit here

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The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) administers a number of different sanctions programs. The purpose of U.S. sanctions programs is to advance U.S. foreign policy objectives and protect national security. Currently, OFAC administers 35 sanctions programs. These sanctions programs vary widely – some are comprehensive while others are highly selective.

U.S. Sanctions Towards Iran

The United States has imposed restrictions on activities with Iran under various legal authorities since 1979, following the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran following the Iranian Revolution. In October 2015, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, China, and Russia, as well as Germany (known collectively as the P5 +1) met with Iran and successfully negotiated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (“JCPOA”). Pursuant to the JCPOA, Iran agreed to roll back parts of its nuclear program in exchange for relief from some sanctions. According to United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231, the JCPOA would result in “the comprehensive lifting of all UN Security Council sanctions as well as multilateral and national sanctions related to Iran’s nuclear program, including steps on access in areas of trade, technology, finance, and energy.” The few years of decreased economic sanctions towards Iran came to an end in May 2018 when the Trump administration unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA. The return of increased U.S. sanctions towards Iran came into effect in November 2018.

The United States’ Iran sanctions program includes secondary sanctions on firms that conduct certain transactions with Iran. This powerful tool has put pressure on foreign firms (including in the European Union) to adhere to U.S. sanctions laws.

The EU Blocking Statute

On November 22, 1996, the European Union (“EU”) enacted Council Regulation (“EC”) No. 2271/96 to counteract the sanctions imposed by the United States against Cuba, Iran, and Libya. Known as the EU Blocking Statute, the regulation shields member-state entities against the effects of the extraterritorial application of legislation adopted by a third country. Given the decision by the Trump administration in May 2018 to withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (“JCPOA” or “Iran Nuclear Deal”) and reimpose sanctions, the contrasting sanctions policies of the United States and the European Union have been a difficult compliance issue for EU firms.

On May 12, 2021, Advocate General Gerard Hogan issued a preliminary opinion in the case of Bank Melli Iran v. Telekom Deutschland GmbH. In the ruling, AG Hogan described the difficult circumstances imposed by the opposing sanction regimes of the United States and the European Union vis-à-vis Iran.

AG Hogan wrote:

“As the facts of this case graphically show, the operation of the EU blocking statute gives bodog sportsbook review rise to a series of hitherto unresolved legal issues and a variety of intensely practical problems, not least of which is that European companies find themselves facing impossible – and quite unfair – dilemmas brought about by the application of two different and directly opposing legal regimes. I cannot avoid observing that the nature of these dilemmas, together with the failure to provide clear guidance on important legal issues which directly arise from the operation of the EU blocking statute, is such that the EU legislature might with advantage review the manner in which that statute presently operates.”

Although the opinion by AG Hogan is a preliminary opinion, the ruling signals important changes to come with regards to how the European Union responds to U.S. secondary sanctions vis-à-vis Iran. Specifically, AG Hogan’s ruling will likely strengthen the EU Blocking Statute and potentially penalize EU parties for adhering to U.S. sanctions laws. EU parties should be conscious to justify their Iran business decisions demonstrating that it was not to adhere to U.S. sanctions laws in order not to violate the EU Blocking Statute. Potentially, EU parties can even be sued contractually for wrongfully terminating a business relationship in violation of the EU blocking statute. This is a very difficult and confusing place for EU parties doing business in Iran.

What You Can Do

Adhering to U.S. sanctions laws can be complex – particularly when U.S. sanctions policies are rapidly changing. We encourage you to engage in the following practices in order to be proactive about your sanctions compliance:

• Develop an effective sanctions compliance program – A key foundation of proactive and effective sanctions compliance requires the development of a sanctions compliance plan. A sanctions compliance plan establishes a set of procedures for your organization to ensure that everyone is on the same page about how standard processes work, who is responsible for what, how to identify violations, what to do when violations occur, etc. A sanctions compliance plan helps build consciousness in your organization that compliance is critical – both to avoid costly penalties and also to protect national security. Diaz Trade Law helps businesses create sanctions compliance manuals that help prove you have a process in place to vet proposed transactions and ensure you can prove you can take compliance seriously and implement all of the important great weight mitigating factors. Diaz Trade Law has significant experience in developing sanctions compliance plans for organizations without plans. Additionally, Diaz Trade Law can assist your business in auditing and improving your current plan so that it is in its best shape.
• Sanctions compliance training – A foundation of a strong sanctions compliance program is sanctions compliance training. Training is important because it (1) ensures that all employees understand the sanctions regulations and reinforces internal policies and procedures, (2) demonstrates to federal government agencies that your business is proactive about sanctions compliance, and (3) avoids your business from being subject to costly penalties and even criminal liability. Fortunately, sanctions compliance training can be highly tailored to meet your company’s needs. All of your training events include assessments for comprehension, certificates for successful participation, and ample opportunities for Q&A. For your next sanctions compliance training event, trust Diaz Trade Law to provide highly-effective, engaging training.
• Transaction vetting – Unsure whether a proposed transaction violates OFAC sanctions? Diaz Trade Law has significant experience vetting your potential transaction against U.S. sanctions laws. Through research and due diligence, Diaz Trade Law ensures that your transaction won’t get you in trouble later down the road. In particular, it is important to vet end-uses (how is your product going to be used?), end-users (who will be using your product?), and destinations (where will your product be used?).
• Voluntary self-disclosures – If your business believes it may have violated OFAC sanctions, it can be in your business’ strategic interest to submit a voluntary self-disclosure (“VSD”). OFAC encourages anyone who may have violated OFAC-administered regulations to disclose the apparent violation to OFAC voluntarily. A voluntary self-disclosure to OFAC is considered a mitigating factor by OFAC in enforcement actions, and pursuant to OFAC’s Enforcement Guidelines, may result in a reduction in the base amount of any proposed civil penalty. Diaz Trade Law has significant experience filing VSDs and mitigating penalties. For detailed information on filing a VSD with OFAC, check out our article Submitting a Voluntary Self-Disclosure to OFAC published by Bloomberg Law.
• Specific license applications – A specific license is an authorization from OFAC to engage in a transaction that otherwise would be prohibited. Businesses may apply for OFAC specific licenses to release blocked funds, generally authorize transactions, and many other purposes. Diaz Trade Law has significant experience submitting specific license applications and receiving authorization for proposed transactions on behalf of our clients.
• Mitigation and corrective action – If your business has violated U.S. sanctions laws, there is a lot you should do to get back into compliance, ensuring you work to prevent future violations, training your employees, updating your manuals, and this work can assist in mitigating potential penalties. Diaz Trade Law has significant experience representing businesses in dealing with the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. Specifically, Diaz Trade Law has successfully assisted clients in (1) submitting voluntary self-disclosures to mitigate penalties, (2) negotiated agreements with OFAC, (3) built corrective action systems to help ensure that your business does not make the same violation again, and (4) updating and enhancing your current export compliance plan.

To read the original commentary by Customs and International Trade Law, please click here. 

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On May 17, the USMCA Free Trade Commission is launching its inaugural meeting. It seems all the more appropriate for us to turn our thoughts to the Biden Administration’s new worker-centered trade policy. At the outset, there is cause for caution. The Biden Administration has inherited an agreement negotiated by the economic-centered Trump Administration. The new Administration also seems to believe that a trade policy protecting “farmers” and “ranchers” is the same thing as a policy that would protect the workers on those farms and ranches.

Without delving into the procedural details in depth (for those details, see this recent report), this post looks specifically at the recent activity that has arisen under USMCA’s Labor Chapter and Facility-Specific Rapid Response Mechanism (“Rapid Response Mechanism”). Examining the implications of the text and those activities, I explain how USMCA fails to give American workers a seat at the table.

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USMCA’s labor provisions are contained in Chapter 23, which commits the Parties to “adopt and maintain in its statutes and regulations, and practices thereunder, the [fundamental labor] rights, as stated in the ILO Declaration on Rights at Work.” Those rights concern:

(a) freedom of association and collective bargaining;

(b) elimination of forced labor;

(c) abolition of child labor and the prohibition of the worst forms of child labor; and

(d) the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation.

USMCA adds an additional right concerning “acceptable conditions of work with respect to minimum wages, hours of work, and occupational safety and health.”

Disputes under the Labor Chapter fall under the general state-to-state dispute mechanism in Chapter 31.

USMCA Rapid Response Mechanism

One of USMCA’s most significant innovations is the “Faculty-Specific Rapid Response Labor Mechanism” (Rapid Response Mechanism), a new form of dispute settlement contained in Chapter 31 (Dispute Settlement) under Annex 31-A, and further described in the USMCA Implementation Act.

Importantly, the Rapid Response Mechanism is not the same thing as the state-to-state dispute settlement mechanism under Chapter 31. Whereas the state-to-state dispute settlement mechanism involves State failures to uphold USMCA obligations, the Rapid Response Mechanism applies to individual facilities within a country that are allegedly infringing upon workers’ freedom of association or collective bargaining rights.

Under the Rapid Response Mechanism, members of the public can file a petition or use a confidential hotline to report information regarding labor issues at those facilities. The Interagency Labor Committee may invoke the Mechanism:

“whenever a Party (the “complainant Party”) has a good faith basis belief that workers at a Covered Facility are being denied the right of free association and collective bargaining under laws necessary to fulfill the obligations of the other Party (the “respondent Party”) under this Agreement (a “Denial of Rights”).”

Finally, the Rapid Response Mechanism may impose financial penalties onto private facilities, such as “suspension of preferential tariff treatment for such goods; the imposition of penalties on such goods or services; or the denial of entry of such goods.”

The Limited Scope of the Rapid Response Mechanism in the United States

The Rapid Response Mechanism does not apply to all facilities in the State Party territories. Indeed, its scope of application, particularly in the United States, is extremely limited.

First, the facilities must satisfy the conditions of the “Covered Facilities,” which are facilities “in the territory of a Party” that involve a “priority sector,” currently defined as “a sector that produces manufactured goods, supplies services, or involves mining”; and that produce goods or supplies services traded between the parties or that compete in the territory of the other party.

Second, under footnote 2 of Annex 31-A, the Trump Administration further limited the Rapid Response Mechanism’s scope of application as follows:

“With respect to the United States, a claim can be brought only with respect to an alleged Denial of Rights owed to workers at a covered facility under an enforced order of the National Labor Relations Board.”

On its face, this footnote makes sense. The Administration wanted to limit the application of the Rapid Response Mechanism to U.S. facilities (cynics might say full stop) only after domestic legal processes had been exhausted. However, by adding the term “enforced order,” which is not defined in national legislation, the Trump Administration effectively shielded U.S. facilities from the scope of the Rapid Response Mechanism.

In the United States, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) adjudicates complaints against employers (and unions) for violating the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). The Board’s decisions are not automatically enforceable. Rather, either the Board or an aggrieved party must appeal the Board’s decision to an appropriate U.S. Court of Appeals.

In practice, footnote 2 shields nearly all U.S. factories from the application of the Rapid Response Mechanism. According to the NLRB, only around 65 cases per year are appealed to Circuit Courts. Of those 65 cases, the Court enforces only 80 percent, or 52 orders. Those statistics do not indicate whether the 52 enforced orders were directed against employers or unions. They also do not mention whether those enforced orders dealt with repeat offenders.

A glance at the Board’s public registry of appellate court briefs and motions shows that these numbers, however dismal, are significantly higher than recent practice. In Fiscal Year 2020, the Board only brought 24 of its cases to the Circuit Courts. Out of those 24 cases, 21 cases were brought against employers (three were brought against unions). Accounting for repeat offenders, only 16 different employers faced a potential enforced order. If the Board’s 80 percent track record holds up, we are looking at about 12-13 facilities facing enforced orders, of which only a minority will satisfy the definition of “Covered Facilities” described above. Consequently, in 2020, less than 12-13 employers in the United States became vulnerable to enforcement action under the Rapid Response Mechanism.

By contrast, the scope of application for Mexico is incredibly broad. It specifies that “a claim can be brought only with respect to an alleged Denial of Rights under legislation that complies with Annex 23-A (Worker Representation in Collective Bargaining in Mexico).” In other words, it applies to all employers and factories subject to applicable labor legislation.

Recent Labor-Related Activity under USMCA Labor Chapter

On March 23, 2021, migrant women from Mexico filed a petition under the USMCA Labor Chapter. They alleged that the United States violated Article 23.3 (elimination of discrimination in respect of employment) and Article 23.8 (ensuring migrant workers are protected under labor laws) by allowing sex-based discrimination in recruitment and hiring practices of migrant workers, and consequently also failing to enforce Title VII and U.S. labor laws.

Their complaint is not new. Mexican women attempting to secure and work under H-2A visas repeatedly submitted similar complaints under the NAFTA labor side agreement. Those attempts were all unsuccessful. According to the most recent complaint, despite years of drawing attention to these labor-rights abuses, migrant women continue to suffer from sex discrimination during the recruitment process and are “excluded from H-2 visa programs as a bodog poker review matter of course.” Those who make it into the program in the United States are assigned to “less favorable and lower-paid positions than their male counterparts, despite having equal qualifications as men.”

Only State Parties to USMCA may bring a dispute under the Labor Chapter. Consequently, the migrant workers’ petition is directed to the Mexican government in hopes that Mexico will “encourage the United States to make [certain recommended] policy and regulatory changes.”

Mexico has not fully taken up the baton. Instead, on May 12, the Mexican Ambassador to the United States, Esteban Moctezuma, sent a letter to Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh, complaining of certain violations under the Labor Chapter. Note that this is a letter, not a formal complaint under the Agreement. Furthermore, while the letter details alleged violations of the rights of Mexican workers in the United States, it fails to reiterate the specific allegations of sex discrimination. It instead details violations of occupational health and safety standards for agricultural workers, interference with the workers’ rights to collectively bargain, and obstacles that prevent undocumented workers from recouping unpaid wages, to name a few.

Migrant women who are working in the United States, meanwhile, continue to wait for an answer or protective action.

Recent Labor-Related Activity under the Rapid Response Mechanism

On May 10, the AFL-CIO and other groups filed a petition with the Biden Administration alleging labor violations at a group of auto parts factories in Mexico across the border from Brownsville, Texas. Specifically, they allege that Tridonex auto parts factories harassed and fired workers for attempting to organize an independent union in violation of their freedom of association rights.

According to the USMCA Implementation Act, after receiving a petition such as this, the Interagency Labor Committee has 30 days to decide whether a petition contains sufficient, credible evidence of a Denial of Rights enabling the good-faith invocation of enforcement mechanisms. If it accepts the petition, USTR will request Mexico to conduct a review. Assuming Mexico agrees to conduct a review, Mexico will have 45 days to remediate.

Although folks are excited about the prospect of seeing the Rapid Response Mechanism put into action, it is unlikely that this petition will mature to a panel. The odds are that the Interagency Labor Committee will either not accept the petition or, if it does, that Mexico will agree to mutually-acceptable remedial action.

Far more interesting, in my opinion, is the activity that took place two days later under Art. 31-A.4(2) of the Rapid Response Mechanism. On May 12, 2021, responding to a tip on the hotline, USTR self-initiated a request that Mexico conduct a review of the General Motors de México facility in Silao, State of Guanajuato (“GM”). In its request, USTR noted its concerns that workers at the facility were denied their right to free association and collective bargaining. In support, USTR points to an April 2021 contract-ratification vote where workers were asked to reaffirm the bargaining authorities of a company-controlled union. The company had allegedly destroyed ballots and threatened workers to control their votes.

Here’s the rub. According to its request, USTR acknowledges the efforts of the Secretaría de Trabajo y Previsión Social (STPS), the Mexican federal department in charge of labor policies, in suspending the election and taking follow up action. In other words, Mexico had initiated its domestic processes to protect the voting conditions and to follow up with the employer. Despite that ongoing process, USTR instigated its own action under the Rapid Response Mechanism.

One potential interpretation of this parallel action is that USTR believes remedial action will be stronger under the Rapid Response Mechanism than it would be under Mexico’s domestic labor laws. As a worker rights advocate, I salute efforts to strengthen protections for workers and sanctions for disobedient employers.

Nevertheless, there are at least two issues here, one specific and one more general. Specifically, USTR is invoking the Rapid Response Mechanism process before Mexico’s domestic processes have been exhausted, leading to potential fragmentation. More generally, the disparate scope of the Rapid Response Mechanism makes it possible for facilities like GM to be held accountable when they are located across from Brownsville, Texas but shields those facilities when they are located in Brownsville, Texas. I explain those concerns below.

Early concerns with the Rapid Response Mechanism

The first issue raised by the May 12 request for review is that, based on its terms, the Rapid Response Mechanism requires respect for U.S. domestic processes (i.e., after an enforced order) but allows the U.S. to interfere with ongoing domestic processes in other countries. Double standards aside (welcome to trade negotiations), the implications could be significant and harmful if the conclusions of the domestic and international bodies differ.

The second issue is the disparate scope of the Rapid Response Mechanism, which imposes greater penalties on Mexican employers than on American employers. If Mexican labor laws fail to enforce international labor standards, Mexican employers face financial penalties under the Rapid Response Mechanism. If U.S. labor laws fail to enforce international labor standards (which they sometimes do), American employers and workers at their facilities will likely fall outside the application of the Rapid Response Mechanism.

Some might be tempted to argue that workers in the U.S. do not need a mechanism like the Rapid Response Mechanism because they are already protected by federal labor laws. Granted, the NLRA prohibits things like company-controlled unions and election interference. However, the NLRA lacks financial penalties for disobedient employers. USTR and Congress had the opportunity to supplement the NLRA’s weak enforcement scheme by exposing U.S. employers to possible financial penalties under the Rapid Response Mechanism. Instead, they limited the scope of the Mechanism’s application. Now, Mexican employers have a greater incentive to respect international labor rights than their American counterparts.

As an aside, it will be interesting to see whether this development impacts the frequency in which the NLRB brings cases to the Courts of Appeals (I could see arguments cutting both ways). I imagine it will deter employers from doing so.

Conclusion

The Biden Administration is advancing a worker-centric trade policy but it has inherited a trade agreement designed for other purposes. To strengthen protections for American workers, Congress will need to make difficult decisions and compromises that it has thus far been unwilling to make. Meanwhile, if Ambassador Tai is sincere in her pledge to give all workers a seat at the trade table, she must work with Congress to broaden the scope of application to provide the same protections for workers in the United States as in the other USMCA countries.

Desiree LeClercq is Director for Labor Affairs at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), an agency under the Executive Office of the President. In that capacity, she negotiates and monitors the effective implementation of the labor chapters in United States trade agreements, most notably in Asia.

To read the original commentary from World Trade Law, please visit here.

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International corporate taxation has long presented a challenge for tax authorities around the world. The emergence of globalization and intangible capital in recent decades has made taxing multinational corporations (MNCs) increasingly difficult, and greater international cooperation is needed to make such taxation more effective. A global minimum tax on profitable MNCs would ensure that a baseline level of revenue is collected from them. Although this tax would not solve all problems related to corporate tax avoidance and evasion, and its design and implementation need careful consideration, it would be an important and helpful step.

The evolution of MNCs’ structure and behavior pose dilemmas for governments. Should MNC profits be taxed in the jurisdiction(s) where economic activities and value creation occur, or where these entities are technically headquartered? How should corporate subsidiaries and difficult-to-value assets such as patents be handled? These types of questions—alongside competing priorities like revenue collection, global competitiveness, and tax efficiency—illustrate the difficult task at hand for the global community.

In today’s economy companies can easily invert their structure and shift profits to tax havens, and intangible capital (e.g., software) is more difficult to precisely value and locate compared with tangible capital (e.g., a factory that produces physical goods). Countries have competed against one another for corporate investment, leading to a race to the bottom as statutory corporate tax rates have continuously fallen globally for forty years. In 1980 the worldwide average statutory corporate tax rate was around 40 percent, as compared to around 24 percent in 2020.

Additionally, the number of tax havens has increased. And effective corporate tax rates are even lower than statutory rates given the proliferation of loopholes. In 2021, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Luxembourg were ranked the “jurisdictions most complicit in helping MNCs underpay corporate income tax.” There is significant corporate tax revenue at stake in all this; it is estimated that governments miss out on between $200 and $600 billion in revenues each year (around 10 to 15 percent of annual global corporate tax revenues).

Most economies utilize some version of a worldwide or territorial tax system. In a worldwide system, domestic and foreign corporate income is taxed. To prevent double taxation, resident corporations can claim a tax credit to offset some or all of the foreign income tax they have paid. In a territorial system, corporate taxes are only paid on income that is generated within the country’s jurisdiction. Most advanced economies have adopted territorial systems.

The United States used a worldwide system until 2017, when the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) moved the country to a hybrid model closer to a territorial system. The TCJA featured several notable changes such as the removal of a tax on repatriated dividends from the foreign subsidiaries of US MNCs, a minimum tax on the intangible profits of US companies’ foreign subsidiaries, and a one-time transition tax on past profits of foreign entities belonging to US MNCs. Despite these changes, US MNCs have continued shifting profits to tax jurisdictions with lower corporate tax rates, in part due to the law’s design. Globally, the magnitude of tax maneuvering is so large that macroeconomic data is distorted via “phantom investments,” where large Foreign Direct Investment figures don’t reflect economic activity but rather empty corporate shells fashioned to lower tax bills.

To address this problem, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Group of Twenty (G20) have been leading the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) initiative—a multilateral negotiation with over 135 countries, including the United States—since 2013. (It’s these negotiations that Yellen was referencing in her remarks.) A global minimum tax is now one of the two central pillars of the BEPS initiative alongside a separate proposal to tax technology MNCs in part based on where their users are located. The debate over a digital-services tax was at the heart of transatlantic tensions last year involving unilateral tax and tariff measures. A specific global minimum tax has not been agreed to, but the basic framework of how one would work involves a “top-up” tax.

As an example, assume Country A has a corporate tax rate of 20 percent and Country B has a corporate tax rate of 11 percent. The global minimum tax rate is 15 percent, and Company X is headquartered in Country A but reports income in Country B. Country A would “top-up” the taxes paid on profits earned by Company X in Country B in a manner equal to the percentage-point difference between Country B’s rate of 11 percent and the global minimum of 15 percent (e.g., Company X would pay in taxes an additional 4 percent of profits reported in Country B). This approach would set a floor on the collection of global tax revenue and help alter corporate incentives because companies would know that profits shifted to tax havens would face incremental taxation. It would also provide transparency on corporate tax practices since enforcing a global minimum tax would require country-by-country reporting of corporate activities.

Countries have also proposed incentives to persuade lower-tax countries to join the agreement, including denying certain tax deductions on income earned in a country that does not adhere to the minimum tax rate. The OECD has released high-level revenue-impact estimates, which assume a 12.5 percent global minimum tax rate, and found significant revenue gains for countries at all income levels.

Momentum for a global minimum tax stalled last year, partially due to roadblocks from the Trump administration, but it has returned of late. The OECD is targeting mid-2021 to reach an agreement on a global minimum tax, and the International Monetary Fund and the United Nations Panel for International Financial Accountability have recommended the measure as well. This timing also aligns with the Biden administration’s push for a global minimum tax as a part of its overall corporate tax reform proposal, intended to help pay for the significant investments outlined in the American Jobs Plan.

While a global minimum tax has high potential, in practice it is unquestionably complicated. Which countries will agree to it? How will reporting work? What counts as taxable income and which deductions should be included? Can countries enforce this? Some businesses are concerned about hits to their competitiveness from possible double taxation and increased compliance costs, and some tax experts question how efficient and effective a global minimum tax would be.

Some aspects of these reservations make sense. And because of widespread abuse and advanced sheltering techniques, a global minimum tax will not on its own deter all corporate tax avoidance and evasion.

Nevertheless, it is still worth trying to enact a global minimum tax. Once a system is in place, it will be easier to adjust the tax as needed to be more effective. Plus, with such a low cost of capital there is good reason to think corporations will be able to adjust their investment decisions without too much difficulty. Many MNCs are already preparing for and prefer a global standard compared to country-by-country proposals.

An agreement of this nature would be unprecedented and lay down an important marker for the future of international corporate taxation. Given the trend of decreasing corporate taxation, the scale of lost revenues, and the need for resources as the world tackles challenges such as climate change and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, complexity and potential imperfection should not prevent action.

Jeff Goldstein is a director of strategy and consulting at Fidelity Investments. During the Obama administration he served as the deputy chief of staff and special assistant to the chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. He also worked at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. The views and opinions expressed in this article are strictly his own.

To view the original article by the Atlantic Council, please click here. 

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Today—Monday, March 8—marks International Women’s Day, this year aptly themed “Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world.” As the agenda takes shape for the Group of Twenty (G20) presidency—which passed to Italy in December 2020 in the midst of the coronavirus crisis—to address the pandemic, climate change, and other transnational challenges, the bloc must take steps to ensure women are central to the more equitable and inclusive recovery that it seeks, the world’s women need, and the global economy demands.

Gender inequality is certainly not a new feature of G20 economies; only around a third or less of women are formally employed in India, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, and low rates of female labor-force participation have long mired economies worldwide. But since the onset of the pandemic in early 2020, women’s employment rates have fallen precipitously in many nations, usually at a quicker pace than those of men. In the United States, women suffered 55 percent of job losses in the first few months of COVID-related economic restrictions. By late 2020, some 2.5 million women had lost their jobs or dropped out of the workforce. In Latin America, women were 50 percent more likely than men to lose their jobs as the pandemic took hold—a figure that does not include losses among the large number of women working in the informal economy or performing unpaid work. In Turkey, surveyed women experienced higher levels of job loss than men did after the spread of COVID-19. Across the Middle East and North Africa region, estimates indicate that women will suffer a third of job losses even though they represent only a fifth of the labor force.

Even when women can find formal employment, wage disparities between women and men have been a key driver of inequality for years: women in the United States make only eighty-two cents for every dollar earned by men, and the gender pay gap is 23 percent globally. The global average of men’s overall income is nearly double that of women, due in part to the fact that women are more likely to be employed in lower-paid, lower-skill work with more job insecurity and fewer benefits.

Youth employment has also been highly vulnerable to the pandemic, dealing young women a double blow. In Argentina, for example, unemployment among those aged fourteen to twenty-nine increased significantly in the first quarter of 2020, to 18 percent, but the figure rose to 24 percent for young women. In the United Kingdom, sectors that shut down due to social-distancing measures employed 25 percent of young men under twenty-five years old but 36 percent of young women in the same age cohort. These sectors employed just 13 percent of workers over age twenty-five.

Beyond employment, women’s enterprises have also been further imperiled by the virus. The latest World Bank Findex in 2017 found that the financial-inclusion gap between men and women, measured in terms of having a bank account, remained at nine percentage points in favor of men in developing economies—unchanged since 2011. In several countries, even those in the middle-income strata, this gap is much more significant. In one COVID-19 impact survey of 30,000 small and micro enterprises worldwide, the gender disparity between shuttered businesses owned by women versus by men reached as high as 10 percent in countries with strict lockdowns. Women around the world also carry out as much as triple the unpaid household and care hours as men do. From India to Japan, and across Europe and the Americas, wage inequality combined with cultural or social norms push women to forego work, especially because of care constraints.

These dynamics account in part for COVID-19’s calamitous, disproportionate effect on women’s earning opportunities across advanced, emerging, and developing countries alike, putting economic participation and prosperity further from their reach. The Women 20 (W20) engagement group has been the traditional hub for consideration of gender issues at the G20. But to address the multitude of acute challenges faced by the world’s women, G20 leaders and finance ministers must now make use of the full range of policy instruments at their disposal. These include gender-responsive budgeting, entrepreneurial and employment tax incentives, healthcare, social-protection measures, improved property rights, increased hiring of women in government, and the collection of disaggregated data to better identify deficits and measure change. The G20 should also take a more integrated and intersectional approach, ensuring women’s inclusion across all of the forum’s engagement and working groups.

The Business 20 (B20), for example, should encourage businesses to promote women to management and decision-making roles; champion employer-provided childcare, healthcare and paid-leave policies, and digital access to close the gender digital divide; and expand access to the platform economy, workplace safety, and gender-elastic lending products and services, including loan-repayment deferments. The Energy Transition and Climate Sustainability Working Group should highlight women’s successes to entice more women to enter non-traditional sectors and engage men and families to shift social norms. Targeted lending and carveouts for women-owned small- and medium-sized enterprises in green business should also be promoted.

The Labour Working Group and Labour 20 (L20) should place the specific needs of women workers—including those in the informal economy—atop their agenda. That should include addressing issues related to wage gaps, childcare, upskilling and on-the-job training, and sexual harassment. As it tackles the education and employment crises, the Education Working Group and Youth 20 (Y20) should focus on young women’s training, skills, and digital access, as well as financial inclusion for productive self-employment and entrepreneurship. These efforts should embrace the future of work and the post-pandemic economy, including ensuring downstream STEM and technical vocational training for the emerging green, orange, care, and digital economies.

The Development Working Group can have an impact in this space by steering multilateral and bilateral donor resources toward the needs of women and girls in low-income countries. Given rapid urbanization in G20 countries and cities worldwide, the Urban 20 (U20) has an important opportunity to advance gender-sensitive urban planning, job creation, and city governance.

In its handover communiqué, the 2020 Saudi W20 stated that “G20 leaders must pave the way for equitable economic recovery where women, as equal partners and key economic actors, are part of the solution.” The Italian presidency must urgently heed this call and advance an energetic, holistic, women-centered agenda that mobilizes resources, directs financing, and ushers in data-informed policies. What’s needed is a strategy that both curbs the damage that the pandemic has inflicted on women and unlocks opportunities for reimagining women’s education, employment, and entrepreneurship in the post-pandemic era. If it succeeds in implementing this two-track strategy, the Italian G20 will be a boon to inclusive growth in member states and the global economy.

To read the full report from the Atlantic Council, please click here

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