WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has identified the key areas that will require close attention if MC13 is to succeed and fulfil the promises of the 12th WTO Ministerial Conference (MC12) — food security, fisheries subsidy disciplines, the development dimension of trade, dispute settlement reform, intellectual property rights and e-commerce.

Each of these topics bodog sportsbook review warrants attention — and each raises difficult issues.

Key issues include addressing purchasing power difficulties of the poorest communities, gaining additional acceptance of the WTO Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies and helping countries that lose support as they graduate from Least Developed Country status. Other issues include addressing the US conviction that the WTO Appellate Body jurisprudence is openly hostile to trade defence instruments, resolving the paradox of patents and meeting the twin goals of data security and data access in the promotion of digital trade.

But there is an overriding challenge facing MC13. The liberal trading order is under siege as world trade becomes increasingly weaponised through targeted government interference, with imports, exports and state-funded subsidies all utilised in the pusuit of other goals. The evidence is clear — the stockpile of G20 trade restrictions bodog sportsbook review has grown more than tenfold since 2009.

There are four interlinked motivations for using trade as a weapon when pursuing other objectives

First, trade can be curtailed to sanction aggression — notably in the case of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine which has caused major collateral damage to international grain supplies. Second, to arm the global value chain to increase self-reliance, particularly in semiconductor production. Third, to execute trade remedies in self-defence, as with the Trump and Biden administrations’ penalty tariffs on imports of steel and aluminium. Fourth, to ‘serve’ science in the interests of the environment and public health, whether through restrictions on trade in key solar energy components or the US$122 billion export restrictions on COVID-19 treatment products.

Crucially, the weaponisation of trade for other purposes has been made possible by a pervasive questioning of the gains from international bodog online casino trade and investment — not only by traditional sceptics on the left but also, now, by the populist right.

For MC13 to build on the promise of MC12 and lay solid foundations for durable progress, it is imperative that in addition to addressing the key challenges identified by WTO Director-General Okonjo-Iweala, alternatives to trade weaponisation are sought and that the discontents of trade are seriously addressed.

In the lead up to MC13 and beyond, this means pursuing the need for diplomatic carrots to accompany the sanctions stick. It is also essential to build resilience in supply chains through sound domestic policy instead of increased self-reliance, such as in the form of re-shoring and friend-shoring. Critical for the continuation of the liberal trading order are multilateral WTO remedies to rulebreaking instead of power-based penalties in the name of national sovereignty, and direct action on environment bodog sportsbook review and public health goals instead of the blunderbuss of trade restrictions.

But to restrain the damaging subordination of trade policy to other ends, governments must also address the discontents of trade. Governments should do more to help the losers of trade opening, adjust to technological change and make the case for open markets — not least by showing how trade weaponisation brings harm to both the user and the target. For example, US steel consumers now pay an estimated extra US$650,000 per year for every job saved by Trump-era penalty tariffs kept by the Biden administration.

No item on the MC13 agenda is more important than dispute settlement reform. Without full restoration of the WTO dispute mechanism, it will be extremely difficult to restrain the use of the trade weapon — whether by unilaterally breaching bound tariffs or by unjustifiably invoking General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade Article 21 to bodog casino restrict trade in the name of ‘essential security interests’. With just a modicum of flexibility, particularly from the United States and China, dispute settlement reform should be a feasible deliverable at MC13.

While responsibility for strengthening the trading system rests with the leaders of the G20, it is ultimately in the capitals of the major traders — in Washington, Beijing, Brussels and Tokyo — that the fate of MC13 will be determined.

The danger of restrictions on trade is real. Growth in the volume of world merchandise trade is expected to fall from 2.7 per cent in 2022 to 1.7 per cent in 2023. And the stakes are high. Failure to strengthen the trading system and the liberal order that underpins it will put three decades of growth and development made possible by globalisation at risk, and the ability to successfully deal with the next pandemic and the climate transition.

Ken Heydon is a former bodog poker review Australian trade official and senior member of the OECD Secretariat, and Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

To read the full post, click here.

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THE NUMBERS: 
COVID vaccinations per week, worldwide: 150 million
Workers escaping deep poverty, 2000-2019: 440 million
International students in the U.S., 2020: 1.07 million

WHAT THEY MEAN:

PPI re-launches this Trade Fact series under the political equivalent of storm warnings and lowering clouds, in the U.S and worldwide.  Looking abroad, publics abroad appear more tempted than at any time in decades to believe that their country’s gain must entail another’s loss.  Looking inward, they seem increasingly at risk from authoritarian populists and illiberal political parties.  And on a different level of analysis, trust among big-power governments has eroded; and the institutions and agreements built up since the Second World War to safeguard security and promote shared growth – whether NATO, the World Trade Organization, the European Union – accordingly seem ever more fragile. 
 
Against this ominous backdrop, in concert with like-minded policymakers and intellectuals in the U.S. and elsewhere, PPI aspires to help – by (a) offering new ideas and projects for a liberalism besieged and in need of revitalization; (b) rebutting unfounded cynicism and pessimism, which often are more the cause than the reflection of deteriorating ideals and institutions; and (c) highlighting the successes of active government joined with open exchange of goods, services, and ideas.  In this spirit, the first in this new Trade Fact series notes three successes of liberalism-writ-large:
 
Half the World’s People Have Received COVID-19 Vaccinations This Year:  22 months after the discovery of a previously unknown coronavirus in Wuhan, government, non-profit, and private-sector investment in medicine development, production technologies, and distribution has provided vaccination shots to 47.8% of the world’s public – that is, 3.7 billion people – with 150 million more shots going into arms each week.
 
Low-Income Work Has Contracted by Two Thirds Since 2000:  The International Labor Organization finds that in 2020, about 8% of the world’s 3.5 billion workers earned ‘extreme poverty’ wages.  That is, for 280 million workers, a day’s labor brought $1.90 or less in constant 2011 dollars.  In 2000, the ILO’s figure was 26% of 2.76 billion workers, or 720 million.  The difference – 440 million people – implies that, on average, every day since the turn of the millennium, 68,000 workers (and along with them, tens of thousands of their children and relatives), have escaped deep poverty. 
 
1.07 Million International Students Are Enrolled in American Universities:Despite Trump-era efforts to close borders, America remains the world’s top choice for study abroad, home to 1.07 million of the world’s 5.8 million international students.  Their tuition and expenses count as an “export of services” in trade accounts; in 2020, this came to $39 billion.  (For context, this is 2% of the $2.13 trillion in total U.S. exports; alternatively, by comparison, U.S. farm exports totaled $150 billion in 2020 and auto exports $59 billion.)  Over the long term, the effects are likely larger.  Surveys from the mid-2010s suggest that about half of foreign grad students take U.S. jobs after their degree, contributing to consumer demand, business creation, and perhaps especially – given that half of them are in engineering, math, and science – to American science and technology.   Despite neo-Maoism and U.S.-China tension, 372,000 Chinese students make up the largest single cohort of the 1.07 million.  After classes and commencements, some will stay on to work, while others return to join China’s next-generation elites in business, civil service, arts and media, and so to help shape these institutions’ role in Chinese domestic policy, daily life, and international affairs. 
 
To ignore storm warnings and lowering clouds is reckless.  The proper response to them is to identify those parts of a roof or a wall that may leak or give way in heavy weather, shore up their weaknesses or replace them with something better.  It is equally important, however, to identify areas of strength, build upon them, and draw on the lessons they offer.  Metaphorical examples appear, in the response of government, non-profit, and private-sector science to a unique medical emergency; in the road out of poverty a still largely open global economy offers the world’s poor; and in the short- and long-term good that can come from education and exchange of ideas.  In such things one can see breaks in the clouds, patches of sunlight ahead, and foundation for PPI’s belief that the liberal project remains vital, successful, and worth defending.

Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.

To read the full commentary, please click here.

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

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

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

A year like no other

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

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

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

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

The outlook

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

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

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

Rebalancing the world economy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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In January 2021, the Moon Administration announced it would seek to join the CPTPP. South Korea was expected to be the first accession candidate to what was originally known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and still sees the CPTPP membership as the key to diversifying exports and spurring economic growth in the wake of Covid-19. South Korea is advantaged by having domestic regulations that are already close to CPTPP standards, and only needs to focus on reforms in a few areas.

The key obstacle for South Korea will be difficulties in its bilateral relationship with Japan, including recently renewed disputes over several “historical issues”, as well as an unfortunate trade war. Japan’s objections to recent proposals to invite South Korea as an observer to the G7 indicate the bilateral relationship will need to be mended before a CPTPP accession is on the cards.

The “Second Up”: United States

US accession would be a game changer for the CPTPP. Not only would it almost triple the economic size of the bloc, but it would also serve as an indicator of renewed US commitment to allies and institutions in the Indo-Pacific. The loss of the US to the negotiations during the Trump administration was a near-fatal blow for the TPP, and restoring the US would return it to its original status as the world’s largest regional trade bloc.

In 2019, Joe Biden backed the CPTPP, saying “the idea behind it was a good one” and, during the Democratic primaries, said he was open to renegotiating US membership. But in 2021, many of the (non-Trump) domestic obstacles remain – a loss of manufacturing jobs, trade tensions with China, and concerns around environmental and labour standards. Despite the challenges, there are good arguments to support the US joining: not only would it increase American exports and benefit the machinery, auto and agriculture industries, but the US could avoid having to negotiate a separate regional trade deal that could take years.

The “Swooper”: United Kingdom

The UK’s formal application comes out of left field. It is not in the Indo-Pacific, and until recently had not been seriously considered. As the move is clearly driven by a desire to rapidly join new trade instruments post-Brexit, there may be doubts about its appropriateness for the bloc.

But the UK does bring good credentials. It would be the second largest CPTPP member after Japan, adding significant heft to the bloc. Its services-based economy would be a strong fit with the CPTPP’s emphasis on “21st century” trade issues, such as e-commerce, intellectual property and investment.

The main question for existing members is how the UK would add value relative to other options. Because it’s outside the region and not currently a major trade partner, the market-access gains from its accession would be lower than with other contenders. But if the timeline for the US or South Korea draws out, going “UK first” could become a credible option.

“Dark horses”: China and Taiwan

China shocked the world in November 2020 by declaring it would “favourably consider” joining the CPTPP. Given its past concerns, and its enthusiastic support for the competing Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement, many observers view its interest as dubious. But, as the world’s second largest economy and top trade partner for nearly all CPTPP members, its accession offers tantalising economic prospects.

The principal difficulty lies in the fact that China’s economic system – built around state-owned enterprises and heavy subsidies – is highly incompatible with the regulatory provisions of the CPTPP. Ongoing political strife with Australia, Japan, Canada and Vietnam also augur poorly for a warm reception.

Taiwan’s bid also faces political obstacles, although of a different nature. Like South Korea, Taiwan is a natural fit for the CPTPP, and in December 2020 declared an intention to formally seek membership. As an APEC member economy, Taiwan is legally eligible for membership of the CPTPP. But its lack of sovereign state status and accelerating tensions with China make it a risky political move for the rest of the bloc.

“Eased colts”: Southeast Asia

At various times, Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia have all expressed some kind of interest in joining the CPTPP. The attractions are obvious: preferential access to a number of large developed country markets and the ability to attract inwards investment especially needed for post-Covid recovery.

As the CPTPP expands, these attractions will gain in strength. However, the bar required for CPTPP accession will be high for these developing economies. It would demand very extensive economic reforms – particularly around labour standards, state-owned enterprises and services – that would affect many sensitive industries. When the stresses of the pandemic and its recovery are also considered, there is arguably very little headroom in Southeast Asia for an ambitious tilt at the CPTPP just yet.

And they’re off

By lodging a formal application for membership, the UK has now started the race. This will be a trigger for other potential new members to come forward and declare their intentions, formally starting an accession process. From there, the choice falls to the existing members. Which candidates they prioritise, whether they negotiate serially or in parallel, and even whether amendments to the existing agreement are made – all are on the table.

Each runner offers a unique mix of strengths, challenges and complexities, and there is no clear indication how the race will play out.

Whatever the result, the clear winner is the existing CPTPP members. After almost losing the agreement following Trump’s withdrawal four years ago, there is now a diverse field of candidates lining up to join. The CPTPP now has a second chance to become a systemically significant addition to the regional and global trade architectures.

To read the original post by the Lowy Institute, please click here. 

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In October 2019, in response to the EU’s failure to fully comply with a World Trade Organization ruling against subsidies it provided to aircraft manufacturer Airbus, the U.S. levied additional tariffs of 25 percent on more than 150 products from EU countries. Affected products included cheese and citrus from the EU or the United Kingdom; single-malt Irish and Scotch whiskeys from the UK; sweaters, pullovers, sweatshirts, performance outerwear, suits, pajamas, swimwear, blankets, and bed linen from the UK; axes, tweezers, pliers, metal cutting shears, pipe cutters, screwdrivers, knives, hand tools, and welding equipment from Germany; printed books, lithographs, and pictures from Germany or the UK; self-propelled machinery from Germany or the UK; and olives and wine from France, Germany, Spain, or the UK. The U.S. also imposed an additional 10 percent tariff on new civil aircraft from France, Germany, Spain, and the UK that was later increased to 15 percent.

In June 2020 the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said it was considering modifying the list of EU goods subject to these tariffs. One change under consideration is to expand the list to include products such as fish, coffee, chocolate, olives, olive oil, beer, vodka, sparkling wine, polyester staple fiber, high tenacity polyester yarn, cotton twill fabric, carpets and other textile floor coverings, laminated fabrics, knitted ski-suits other than of manmade fibers, ceramic products, glassware, glass fiber yarn, table knives, wall clocks, and lifting machinery. USTR is also considering increasing the tariff on affected goods from 25 percent to 100 percent.

Also in June USTR announced a new Section 301 investigation of digital service taxes adopted or under consideration by the EU and a number of its member countries. A similar investigation of intellectual property rights protections in China resulted in a 25 percent tariff on hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of imports from that country, and the DST investigation could result in additional tariffs or other restrictions on imports from EU countries if consultations do not yield a successful resolution. The U.S. is already moving in that direction in a separate investigation of a DST imposed by France, announcing recently plans to hit soap, cosmetics, and handbags from that country with an additional 25 percent tariff beginning in January 2021.

However, importers of goods from the EU can utilize a number of proven, legitimate strategies to prepare for and mitigate the effects of these tariffs.

– tariff engineering, where products are imported in unfinished or embellished forms to take advantage of classification provisions carrying a lower or free rate of duty

– special HTSUS Chapter 98 provisions, which cover numerous types of products used for specific purposes as well as specific production or sourcing scenarios involving the U.S. or previously imported components

– operational engineering, or changing the product’s country of origin by shifting the country in which a substantial transformation is achieved

– first sale valuation, where duty is paid on the price a trading company pays the manufacturer instead of the higher price the importer pays the trading company

– excluding certain amounts typically included in the price, such as buying commissions, shipping-related charges, inspection fees, and post-importation assembly charges, from dutiable value

– bonded facilities, such as foreign-trade zones and warehouses, and temporary importation bonds

ST&R’s Aug. 6 webinar will review the tariffs that have been and may be imposed on EU products as well as these and other strategies importers can use to ease the burden those tariffs may cause.

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New import-restrictive measures unrelated to the pandemic covered an estimated USD 417.5 billion worth of merchandise trade, the third-highest figure recorded since May 2012. Tariff increases, import bans, stricter customs procedures, export duties and other such measures introduced during the review period affected 2.8 per cent of G20 trade. Meanwhile, the stock of import-restrictive measures implemented since 2009 and still in force continues to grow – now affecting an estimated 10.3 per cent of G20 imports (USD 1.6 trillion).

However, the WTO report also finds evidence of steps towards more open trade policies across sectors, including goods, services and intellectual property.

New import-facilitating measures, such as tariff reductions, the elimination of import taxes and the reduction of export duties, covered an estimated USD 735.9 billion worth of trade, excluding policies relating to the pandemic. This figure is the highest recorded since 2014, and is sharply higher than the USD 92.6 billion trade coverage of import-facilitating measures recorded during the previous monitoring period from May to October 2019.

The initial COVID-19 outbreak saw many governments introduce trade restrictions, over 90 per cent of them export bans on medical products, such as surgical masks, gloves, medicine and disinfectant. Since then, G20 economies have repealed 36 per cent of these restrictions. They have also lowered barriers to imports of many pandemic-related products. As of mid-May 2020, 65 of the 93 pandemic-related trade measures implemented during the monitoring period – or about 70 per cent – were of a trade-facilitating nature. The remaining 28 measures, 30 per cent of the total, could be considered to have trade-restrictive effects.

Commenting on the report, Director-General Roberto Azevêdo said:

“Historically high levels of trade-restrictive measures remain a source of concern, all the more so at a time when international trade and investment will be critical to rebuild economies, businesses and livelihoods around the world. That said, we also see some encouraging indications: not since 2014 have import-facilitating measures implemented during a single monitoring period covered more trade.  

“There are signs that trade-restrictive measures adopted in the early stages of the pandemic are starting to be rolled back. There is no room for complacency: building on these positive indicators will demand consistent efforts and leadership, starting with the G20. Exceptional circumstances require exceptional responses, and this is the time for G20 governments to work together to facilitate a rapid and inclusive economic recovery.”

The report – the 23rd in a series dating back to the global financial crisis in 2009 – was the first to be prepared against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. The full impact of the viral outbreak and associated lockdown measures is not yet reflected in trade statistics, but according to WTO data published on 22 June, world trade fell sharply in the first half of the year.

In addition to details about trade measures put in place during the review period, the report, in line with its mandate, provides details on general economic support measures put in place by governments. The new report also describes the unprecedented number and extent of emergency support measures introduced in response to the economic and social disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Most of the 468 COVID-19-related economic support measures identified appeared to be of a temporary nature and included a broad range of support programmes, loans, credit guarantees and stimulus packages. Several measures were one-off grants, others included disbursements staggered over a period of a few months to up to three years. Some of these measures form part of emergency rescue programmes collectively worth in excess of several trillion US dollars.

The WTO trade monitoring reports have been prepared by the WTO Secretariat since 2009. G20 members are: Argentina; Australia; Brazil; Canada; China; the European Union; France; Germany; India; Indonesia; Italy; Japan; the Republic of Korea; Mexico; the Russian Federation; the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; South Africa; Turkey; the United Kingdom; and the United States.

KEY FINDINGS

• This Report covers new trade and trade-related measures implemented by G20 economies between 16 October 2019 and 15 May 2020. This period included the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has already delivered an almost unprecedented shock to the global economy and caused significant social disruption. Although the full impact of the pandemic is not yet reflected fully in trade statistics, it is expected to be very substantial.
• In its trade forecast of 8 April, the WTO considered two scenarios for the crisis, one relatively optimistic and the other more pessimistic. Under the optimistic scenario, the volume of world merchandise trade would fall by 12.9 per cent and world GDP would decline by 2.5 per cent. Under the pessimistic scenario, trade would contract by 31.9 per cent and GDP would shrink by 8.8 per cent. As of mid-June, preliminary trade data and trade-related indicators for the first half of 2020 are more consistent with the optimistic scenario than the pessimistic one but actual outcomes could easily fall within or even outside of the forecast range, depending on how the crisis unfolds.
• World trade was already slowing before the pandemic struck, weighed down by heightened trade tensions and slowing global economic growth. Merchandise trade was down 0.1 per cent in volume terms in 2019, marking the first decline since 2009. Trade growth also slowed in nominal terms in 2019, as the dollar value of merchandise exports fell by 3 per cent to USD 18.89 trillion. Although commercial services exports increased by 2 per cent to USD 6.03 trillion in 2019, the pace of growth was down sharply from 9 per cent in the previous year.
• Overall, G20 economies implemented 154 new trade and trade-related measures during the review period, of which 95 were of a trade-facilitating nature and 59 were trade-restrictive. Sixty per cent of these measures (93 in total) were linked to the COVID-19 pandemic. Of these 93 measures, 65 facilitated trade while 28 restricted trade. In the early stages of the pandemic, several of the measures introduced by G20 economies restricted the free flow of trade, principally for exports. But as of mid-May 2020, 70 per cent of all COVID-19 related measures were trade-facilitating. Of the pandemic-related trade restrictions recorded, export bans accounted for more than 90 per cent. Around 36 per cent of the COVID-19 specific trade restrictions implemented by G20 economies had been repealed by mid-May.
• Excluding COVID-19-related measures, G20 economies implemented 61 trade and trade-related measures during the review period. These included 30 new measures aimed at facilitating trade during the review period. The trade coverage of these non-COVID-19 related import-facilitating measures implemented during the review period was estimated at USD 735.9 billion, the highest figure for such measures since November 2014. G20 economies also put in place 31 new trade-restrictive measures unrelated to the pandemic. The trade coverage for these new import-restrictive measures was estimated at USD 417.5 billion – the third-highest value recorded since May 2012. The trade coverage of import restrictive measures has soared since May 2018 as a result of global trade tensions. It is estimated that 2.8 per cent of G20 trade was affected by import-restrictive measures implemented during the current review period. Import-restrictive measures implemented since 2009 and still in force affect an estimated 10.3 per cent of G20 imports (USD 1.6 trillion).
• All WTO issues regularly covered by this Report saw significant activity both before and after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. During the review period, 203 trade remedy actions were recorded for G20 economies. The monthly average of trade remedy actions initiated was slightly higher than the average for the last eight years while the monthly average of trade remedy terminations was the lowest over the same time span. During the review period, initiations of anti-dumping investigations accounted for around 80 per cent of all trade remedy initiations, which also includes safeguards and countervailing actions.
• In services, most of the new measures introduced by G20 economies between mid-October 2019 and mid-May 2020 were trade facilitating, but a number of new policies appeared to be trade restrictive, including in areas related to foreign investment and in areas considered strategic or linked to national security. Most of the 51 services measures adopted by G20 economies in response to the pandemic appeared to be trade-facilitating.
• G20 economies continued to implement general economic support measures as part of their overall trade policy, a fact confirmed by Secretariat analysis despite governments’ low response rate with respect to these measures. In addition, G20 economies also implemented a large number of emergency support measures in response to the economic and social turmoil caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of the 468 COVID-19 related general economic support measures identified, including monetary, fiscal and financial measures as well as preferential loans, credit guarantees, and stimulus packages, collectively worth several trillion US dollars, appeared to be temporary in nature. These emergency support measures are central to governments’ strategies to address the pandemic-induced economic downturn and to prepare the ground for a strong recovery. Regular monitoring of support measures introduced in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic will be important for members to be able to track their evolution and effects as the world exits the health crisis and enters a recovery period.
• G20 economies continued to be very active in notifying their sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures, accounting for 66 per cent of all regular notifications and 35 per cent of emergency notifications since 1995. From 1 February until 15 May 2020, ten G20 economies submitted 15 SPS notifications and communications related to measures taken in response to the pandemic. The nature of most of these measures has shifted, from initial restrictions on animal imports and/or transit from affected areas and additional certification requirements, to, as of April, trade-facilitating measures such as the use of electronic certificates for checks. Similarly, G20 economies are the most frequent users of the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Committee’s transparency mechanisms. As of 15 May 2020, G20 economies had submitted 20 COVID-19 related TBT notifications, covering a wide range of products including personal protective equipment (PPE), medical equipment, medical supplies, medicines and food.
• Most questions raised in the Committee on Agriculture during the review period focused on policies implemented by G20 economies. In relation to the COVID-19 pandemic, three WTO members informed the WTO of temporary measures to respond to food security threats.
• The Report also covers developments in G20 economies in trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS). Several G20 members implemented specific IP-related measures aimed at facilitating the development and dissemination of COVID-19 related health technologies, as well as at relaxing procedural requirements and extending deadlines for administrative IP matters.
• Work continued in the first months of 2020 to advance negotiations, particularly on fisheries subsidies, building on the decision taken by members at the WTO’s 11th Ministerial Conference in late 2017. Groups of members also continued to pursue discussions on other issues, including electronic commerce, investment facilitation, women’s economic empowerment, domestic regulation in services and micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs). However, delegations’ ability to engage in detailed negotiations has been constrained by restrictions on movement and the refocusing of priorities on addressing the COVID-19 pandemic.

G20 trade-facilitating and trade-restrictive measures, mid-October 2019 to mid-May 2020
(By number)

Note:       Including COVID-19 trade and trade-related measures.
Source:   WTO Secretariat.

G20 COVID-19 trade and trade-related measures, by mid-May 2020
(By number)

Source:   WTO Secretariat.

G20 trade and trade-related measures, mid-October 2019 to mid-May 2020
(By number)

Note:       COVID-19 trade and trade-related measures are not included.
Source:   WTO Secretariat.

Trade coverage of G20 measures, mid-October 2019 to mid-May 2020
(USD billion)

Note:       COVID-19 trade and trade-related measures are not included.
Source:   WTO Secretariat.

Trade coverage of new import-facilitating measures in each reporting period
(not cumulative)
(USD billion)

Note:       These figures are estimates and represent the trade coverage of the measures (i.e. annual imports of the products concerned from economies affected by the measures) and not the cumulative impact of the trade measures. Liberalization associated with the 2015 Expansion of the WTO’s Information Technology Agreement is not included in the figures. COVID-19 trade and trade-related measures are not included.
Source:   WTO Secretariat.

Trade coverage of new import-restrictive measures in each reporting period
(not cumulative)
(USD billion)

Note:       These figures are estimates and represent the trade coverage of the measures (i.e. annual imports of the products concerned from economies affected by the measures) introduced during each reporting period, and not the cumulative impact of the trade measures. COVID-19 trade and trade-related measures are not included.
Source:   WTO Secretariat.

Cumulative trade coverage of G20 import-restrictive measures in force since 2009
(USD billion and % of world merchandise imports)

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That debate should start with a fundamental question: What should the objective of trade policy be? Some view trade through the lens of foreign policy, arguing that tariffs should be lowered or raised in order to achieve geopolitical goals. Others view trade strictly through the lens of economic efficiency, contending that the sole objective of trade policy should be to maximize overall output. But what most Americans want is something else: a trade policy that supports the kind of society they want to live in. To that end, the right policy is one that makes it possible for most citizens, including those without college educations, to access the middle class through stable, well-paying jobs.

That is precisely the approach the Trump administration is taking. It has broken with the orthodoxies of free-trade religion at times, but contrary to what critics have charged, it has not embraced protectionism and autarky. Instead, it has sought to balance the benefits of trade liberalization with policies that prioritize the dignity of work.

Under this new policy, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, which I head, has taken aggressive and, at times, controversial actions to protect American jobs. But it has done so without sparking unsustainable trade wars and while continuing to expand U.S. exporters’ access to foreign markets. The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which was first signed in 2018 and is scheduled to enter into force this year, offers the best and most comprehensive illustration of this new approach. This new way of thinking has motivated the administration’s policies toward China and the World Trade Organization (WTO), as well. In addressing the challenges that remain, the administration has the same goal: a balanced, worker-focused trade policy that achieves a broad, bipartisan consensus and better outcomes for Americans. 

THE LIMITS OF INTERDEPENDENCE

Before World War II, tariffs were high by contemporary standards. From the 1820s until the late 1940s, the weighted average U.S. tariff (which measures duties collected as a percentage of total imports) rarely dipped below 20 percent. President Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal Congress ushered in a period of relative tariff liberalization in the 1930s, but the rate remained in the mid- to high teens throughout the decade. After the war, however, both Democrats and Republicans came to champion tariff reduction as a means of preventing yet another conflict, arguing that trade fostered interdependence between nations. Trade liberalization therefore came to be seen not just as a tool of economic policy but also as a path to perpetual peace. 

Subsequent events seemed to vindicate this view. Exports to U.S. consumers helped Japan and West Germany rebuild and become responsible members of the world community. The tearing down of trade barriers within Europe, starting with the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951, surely contributed to postwar security, as well, by bringing the democracies of Western Europe closer together and setting a template for future cooperation.

But interdependence does not always lead to peace. In the United States, economic ties between the North and the South did not prevent the Civil War. Global trade grew rapidly in the years right before World War I; exports as a percentage of global GDP peaked at nearly 14 percent in 1913, a record that would hold until the 1970s. Likewise, it would be hard to argue that the rise of Germany as a major exporter in the late nineteenth century helped pacify that country in the first half of the twentieth. Japan’s dependence on raw materials from the United States motivated its attack on Pearl Harbor. More recently, China’s accession to the WTO in 2001—which was supposed to make the country a model global citizen—was followed by massive investments in its military capabilities and territorial expansion in the South China Sea. 

On the flip side, conflict over trade is not always destabilizing or a threat to broader foreign policy objectives. The NATO alliance survived the tariff hikes associated with both the 1960s “chicken war,” when the United States clashed with France and West Germany over poultry duties, and the 1970s “Nixon shock,” when the United States effectively abandoned the Bretton Woods system. The United States and Japan fought about trade in the 1980s, but their bilateral security alliance stayed strong. Countries, like people, compartmentalize.

Concessions to achieve broader diplomatic aims can prove costly in the long run.

There may be situations when it is appropriate to make concessions on trade in order to achieve broader diplomatic aims, but one should keep in mind that such bargains can prove costly in the long run. Letting India join the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (the precursor to the WTO) in 1948 with nearly a third of its industrial tariffs uncapped, for example, no doubt made sense to Cold Warriors, who thought that it would help bring India into the U.S. camp. Yet the negative repercussions of that decision persist to this day, now that India has become one of the world’s largest economies and, at times, a troublesome trading partner for the United States. Over the years, such concessions have piled up.

Sometimes, the tendency to view trade through the lens of diplomacy has led to excess timidity. The most vivid example is the failure of the George W. Bush and Obama administrations to meaningfully confront China’s market-distorting subsidies and policy of forcing foreign companies to share their technology. But there are many others. For instance, until the current administration took office, the United States had never invoked the procedures for enforcing environmental commitments it had bargained for in its free-trade agreements. The Trump administration has used those tools to crack down on illegal timber harvesting in Peru and illegal fishing in South Korea.

Although the United States should not wield its economic leverage blithely, fear of rocking the diplomatic boat cannot be an excuse for inaction. The Trump administration has demonstrated that it is possible to take targeted yet aggressive trade actions while managing the risk of escalation. Despite the “sky is falling” rhetoric that has greeted many of the administration’s policies, the United States has remained the most open of the world’s major economies throughout Donald Trump’s presidency. Even with the recent tariffs imposed against China, along with efforts to rescue the domestic steel, aluminum, and solar power industries, the United States’ weighted average tariff was only 2.85 percent in 2019 (and 1.3 percent for imports from countries other than China). That’s slightly higher than the 1.5 percent rate that prevailed during the last year of the Obama administration but still lower than a comparable figure for the EU: the 3.0 percent weighted average rate it imposes on imports from other WTO members. 

History will judge the ultimate effectiveness of the Trump administration’s targeted duties. But experience has already proved wrong the Cassandras who said that its actions would inevitably lead to a 1930s-style trade war.

THE EFFICIENCY OBSESSION

The other dominant school of thought in trade policy is the economist’s perspective. For adherents of this faith, the sole objective of trade policy is market efficiency. Lower tariffs and nontariff barriers reduce the costs of producing and distributing goods and services; that, in turn, makes society as a whole better off—so the argument goes. How such policies affect the men and women who do the producing and distributing is of little or no consequence. 

Rather than envisioning the type of society desired and fashioning a trade policy to fit, economists tend to do the opposite: they start from the proposition that free trade should reign and then argue that society should adapt. Most acknowledge that lowering trade barriers causes economic disruption, but very few suggest that the rules of trade should be calibrated to help society better manage those effects. On the right, libertarians deny that there is a problem, because the benefits of cheap consumer goods for the masses supposedly outweigh the costs. On the left, progressives promote trade adjustment assistance and other wealth-transfer schemes as a means of smoothing globalization’s rough edges.

Neither response is satisfactory. Those obsessed with efficiency tend to see employment simply as a means of allocating resources and ensuring production. In so doing, they greatly undervalue the personal dignity that individuals derive from meaningful work. Commentators from Pope Leo XIII in the nineteenth century to Arthur Brooks and Oren Cass today have written eloquently about the central role of work in a well-ordered society. Doing honest work for a decent wage instills feelings of self-worth that come from being needed and contributing to society. Stable, remunerative employment reinforces good habits and discourages bad ones. That makes human beings better spouses, parents, neighbors, and citizens. By contrast, the loss of personal dignity that comes from the absence of stable, well-paying employment is not something that can be compensated for either by increased consumption of low-cost imported goods or by welfare checks. 

None of this is to suggest that market efficiency should be irrelevant. But it should not be the sole factor in trade policy, and certainly not an object of idolatrous devotion, as some have made it. When it comes to taxes, health care, environmental regulation, and other issues, policymakers routinely balance efficiency with other competing goals. They should do the same for trade.

In recent years, however, the fixation on efficiency caused many to ignore the downsides of trade liberalization. Particularly as elites came to accept free trade as an article of faith, businesses found that they could send jobs abroad without attracting much negative publicity. General Electric’s hard-charging CEO from 1981 to 2001, the late Jack Welch, told suppliers at one point that his company would stop doing business with them if they weren’t outsourcing jobs. “Supply chain relocation” became a cure-all peddled by management consulting firms. Unfortunately—as COVID-19 has made painfully apparent—many companies caught up in the outsourcing frenzy failed to appreciate the risks. 

Economic groupthink also led policymakers to stop worrying about trade deficits. In recent years, the U.S. trade deficit in goods has rivaled the size of many G-20 economies. In theory, if the United States could produce enough goods domestically to eliminate its $345 billion goods deficit with China, that would be the equivalent in revenue terms of adding two and a half more General Motors to the U.S. economy. Yet in most policy circles, discussion of the trade deficit has been limited to why it supposedly doesn’t matter. 

Many take comfort in the following trope: “I run a trade deficit with my barber; since both of us are better off as a result, trade deficits are benign.” This analogy is flawed. A deficit with the barber is one thing, but if I run a deficit with the barber, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, and everyone else with whom I transact, the situation is altogether different. Moreover, long-term trade deficits must be financed through asset sales, which can prove unsustainable over time. To carry the analogy further, the trade deficit I run with providers of goods and services I consume is benign if it is offset by the surplus I run with my employer through the sale of my labor. But the situation may prove unsustainable if I’m funding my consumption by taking out a second mortgage on my home. And that is essentially what the United States has been doing over the past three decades by running a trade deficit year after year. These persistent deficits are financed by net inflows of capital—which means that every year, the country must sell U.S. assets to foreign investors in order to sustain the gap between exports and imports. 

Academic theory also cannot hide the basic fact that if a country imports goods it could produce domestically, then domestic spending is employing people abroad rather than at home. This tradeoff might be worth it if it frees up workers to move to more productive, higher-paying jobs. It might make sense, too, if reciprocal agreements for market access create new export-related jobs that replace those lost to competition from cheaper imports. But persistent trade deficits should, at the very least, cause policymakers to question the tradeoff and inquire as to the reasons behind the imbalance. Such scrutiny should increase with the size of the deficit. And particularly when trade deficits are the result of currency manipulation, a lack of reciprocity in market access, unfair labor practices, or subsidies, the United States should try to change the rules of trade.

THE DARK SIDE OF FREE TRADE

The trade policy of the future should be informed by a balanced assessment of the past. On the positive side of the ledger, lower trade barriers and the proliferation of free-trade agreements in recent decades swelled the profits of many multinational corporations. That benefited not only CEOs but also middle-class Americans who hold equities in their retirement accounts. Trade helped revive many of the country’s great urban centers. Cheap imports and the rise of big-box and online retailers have made an ever-expanding class of consumer goods available to the masses. In China, India, and throughout the rest of the developing world, millions of people have been lifted out of poverty. 

Yet the dark side is undeniable. Between 2000 and 2016, the United States lost nearly five million manufacturing jobs. Median household income stagnated. And in places prosperity left behind, the fabric of society frayed. Since the mid-1990s, the United States has faced an epidemic of what the economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton have termed “deaths of despair.” They have found that among white middle-aged adults who lack a college education—a demographic that has borne much of the brunt of outsourcing—deaths from cirrhosis of the liver increased by 50 percent between 1999 and 2013, suicides increased by 78 percent, and drug and alcohol overdoses increased by 323 percent. From 2014 to 2017, the increase in deaths of despair led to the first decrease in life expectancy in the United States over a three-year period since the 1918 flu pandemic.

Trade has not been the sole cause of the recent loss of manufacturing jobs or of the attendant societal distress. Automation, productivity gains, foreign currency manipulation, and the financial crisis of 2008 have played key roles, as well. But it cannot be denied that the outsourcing of jobs from high- to low-wage places has devastated communities in the American Rust Belt and elsewhere.

Outsourcing of jobs has devastated communities in the American Rust Belt and elsewhere.

Of course, economic upheaval is often the price of progress, and, economists insist, comparative advantage should encourage workers to move to more productive and higher-paying jobs. But this theoretical phenomenon has failed to materialize in recent years. Compared with those who lost their jobs in earlier periods of economic change, displaced workers in modern, developed economies typically have fewer and less attractive options. In the United Kingdom in the nineteenth century, for example, the repeal of the protectionist Corn Laws prompted agricultural workers to flee the countryside for industrializing urban areas where factory jobs were waiting. By contrast, the American factory workers who were displaced beginning in the 1990s either had nowhere to go or ended up working in low-skill, low-paying service jobs.

Rather than attempt to reverse these trends, some argue that mature economies should double down on services, the digital economy, and research and development. These sectors contribute greatly to the United States’ competitive edge, and the service sector employs most Americans today and will likely continue to do so for the foreseeable future. At the same time, however, it is difficult to imagine that the U.S. economy can serve the needs of working people without a thriving manufacturing sector. 

The technology sector, for all its virtues, simply is not a source of high-paying jobs for working people. Over half of the United States’ roughly 250 million adults lack a college diploma. Historically, manufacturing jobs have been the best source of stable, well-paying employment for this cohort. Perhaps with massive new investments in education, former autoworkers could be taught to code. But even so, there probably wouldn’t be enough jobs to employ them all. Apple, Facebook, Google, and Netflix collectively employ just over 300,000 people—less than half the number that General Motors alone employed in the 1960s.

Moreover, the service and technology jobs most accessible to working people, such as data entry and call center jobs, are themselves vulnerable to offshoring. Economists have estimated that nearly 40 million service-sector jobs in the United States could eventually be sent overseas—that’s more than three times the number of current manufacturing jobs in the country.

 

Cheerleaders for globalization are quick to point out that many products manufactured abroad were designed by engineers and researchers located in the United States. But those jobs are not safe from offshoring, either. China is investing heavily in its universities, and India has no shortage of capable engineers. In the technology sector, in particular, there are valuable synergies from having engineers located close to manufacturing facilities. The back of today’s iPhone reads “Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China”; tomorrow, it easily could read “Designed and Assembled by Apple in China.”

Covid-19 has exposed other problems with the erosion of the United States’ manufacturing capacity. The country has found itself overly dependent on critical medical equipment, personal protective gear, and pharmaceuticals from abroad. Even Germany and South Korea, strong U.S. allies, have blocked exports of key medical products as their own citizens have fallen ill. The crisis also has demonstrated how overextended supply chains increase the risk of economic contagion when a single link in the chain is broken. Even before the crisis reached American shores, many U.S. companies were feeling the effects of China’s economic shutdown. Now, as companies prepare to reopen their U.S. operations, many still can’t produce what they want, since their overseas suppliers do not yet have government permission to reopen.

The United States should not attempt to wall itself off from the rest of the world in response to the current pandemic, but it should reinforce its determination to maintain and grow its manufacturing base. Trade policy alone cannot do that. But as part of a broader suite of tax and regulatory policies designed to encourage investment in the United States, reforms to the rules of trade can play an important role. 

A MODEL DEAL

A sensible trade policy strikes a balance among economic security, economic efficiency, and the needs of working people. When the administration began the task of renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement—one of the president’s signature campaign promises—two things were clear. One was that the agreement had become wildly out of balance, badly out of date, and hugely unpopular. The second, however, was that undoing 25 years of economic integration in North America would be costly and disruptive. The challenge in negotiating the USMCA was to right NAFTA’s wrongs while preserving trade with the United States’ two largest trading partners. 

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The United States is exactly right to be concerned about the various digital services taxes (DST) that have been imposed or are under consideration. The taxes in question vary slightly, but they generally “tax the gross revenues of large digital companies” and largely tax gross income rather than net profits. Almost all are written in a way that exclusively targets America’s largest technology companies for burdensome and discriminatory treatment.

As noted by Gary Hufbauer of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the EU’s DST is a de facto tariff that violates various World Trade Organization (WTO) rules. DSTs would hamstring some of America’s most innovative companies. The move to open an investigation is drawing bipartisan praise. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) issued a joint statement supporting USTR’s decision.

At the same time, the investigation could open the door for a larger trade war with several countries. USTR’s investigation invokes Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows the U.S. to identify foreign trade practices that are “unjustifiable,” “unreasonable,” or “discriminatory” barriers that burden U.S. commerce. Unlike several other trade authorities used to protect domestic companies from foreign competition, Section 301 is ostensibly designed to give the United States leverage to tear down foreign trade barriers and pry open foreign markets.

Between its enactment in 1974 and the early 1990s, the United States frequently invoked Section 301 to impose tariffs, a policy renowned trade economist Jagdish Bhagwati dubbed “aggressive unilateralism.” Such actions infuriated trading partners. As part of the so-called “grand bargain” in the Uruguay Round negotiations that converted the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade into the WTO, the United States agreed to drop unilateral enforcement under Section 301 for matters falling within WTO agreements in exchange for binding dispute settlement. Between 1995 and the beginning of the Trump administration, Section 301 largely fell out of favor and burdensome foreign trade barriers were targeted through the WTO’s dispute settlement system.

Today, the United States has undermined the WTO’s dispute-settlement system in a number of ways and is back to using Section 301. Our recent foray into aggressive use of 301 should give the Trump administration pause as it pursues a new investigation. In 2018, for instance, USTR released its Section 301 report that documented a number of unfair and burdensome Chinese trade practices, including intellectual property abuses, theft of trade secrets, forced technology transfer, and others. Relying on the report, the Trump administration imposed aggressive tariffs on imports from China.

Though the United States and China signed a detente in January, the president’s tariffs cover about 70 percent of imports from China, with the average tariff between six and seven times higher than when the trade war began. As countless studies have confirmed, American consumers, not Chinese exporters, are paying the president’s tariffs. Likewise, a recent study from the New York Federal Reserve found that American firms lost $1.7 trillion in market capitalization from lower investment growth as a result of the trade war with China.

In other words, the trade war has exacted a heavy toll on the American economy, and it is not clear that Beijing has made, or will make, significant structural changes to its economy. For example, China is even more reliant on its state-owned enterprises to meet the aggressive purchase requirements called for under the deal signed in January, the opposite of the U.S. goal to nudge Chinese firms to operate on more market-oriented terms.

If the United States is right to defend some of its leading global companies, but tariffs could trigger another costly trade war with several countries, what should policymakers do?

The best answer is the one required by law. We should file a dispute at the WTO. The de facto tariffs under consideration by these trading partners are inconsistent with their WTO commitments. If the United States were to prevail, the respondent countries could either remove the offending measures or the United States would have permission to impose countermeasures without the threat of retaliation. That is how the system was designed to work and it has worked well over the last 25 years.

Likewise, as the United States negotiates free trade agreements with the United Kingdom and others, it could push for bans on DSTs. As part of the narrow agreement struck between the U.S. and Japan last fall, the two countries agreed to “ensur[e] non-discriminatory treatment of digital products, including coverage of tax measures.” Similar prohibitions would likely require large concessions from American trade negotiators. But if defending its leading tech companies from foreign discrimination is a top priority, such concessions could be worth it.

Large countries already are trying to negotiate a multilateral solution to digital taxation issues through the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). It makes sense as part of that process to ensure taxes are not discriminatory against American firms and are consistent with longstanding principles. It also is important that the United States exercise more leadership in fixing some of the existing issues with that proposal, which currently threatens to create double taxation on numerous sectors.

Perhaps USTR is trying to pressure countries to rescind digital taxes or avoid adopting them in the first place. When France enacted its DST, USTR issued a lengthy Section 301 report and threatened stiff tariffs on a number of French products in response. France ultimately delayed the tax until 2021 and USTR held off on imposing tariffs as the two sides try to negotiate a solution. The only problem with this strategy is that, if other countries do not back down the way France did, the United States would have to move forward with tariffs.

The United States should do all it can to defend some of its most innovative companies from discriminatory foreign tax treatment, but an aggressive trade war with a number of the large trading partners subject to USTR’s investigation could be catastrophic for the economy, just as it starts to recover from the damage wrought by COVID.

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With the exception of India and Korea, the EPN countries are also signatories of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), the successor to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) that President Trump pulled out of three days after his inauguration.[2] Had he not done so, US participation in the TPP could have provided a framework for the supply chain cooperation that the Administration now seeks in the Asian-Pacific region.[3] The formation of the EPN is not the only example of the enduring relevance of the TPP: the negotiators of the USMCA drew 57 percent of the new North American agreement from the text of the TPP.[4]

Two days after the announcement of the Administration’s support for EPN-based supply chains, US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer wrote that the “era of reflexive offshoring is over.”[5] To support that claim, Ambassador Lighthizer cited a report that US imports of manufactured goods from 14 Asian low-cost trading partners had declined by 7.2 percent in 2019. [6]

While it is true that the Administration’s trade war has caused a drop in imports from China, to declare the end of offshoring misreads global trade data. Many companies still rely heavily on supply chains that include Chinese manufacturers. The shift made already by US companies that moved manufacturing from China to Vietnam and other low-cost countries and the reluctance of corporations to lose productivity gains from international supply chains also indicate that widespread reshoring of production to the United States will face considerable obstacles.[7] Moreover, the Chinese companies that also moved their operations to Vietnam will continue to play an integral role in the supply chains of US companies. Finally, the participation of low-cost countries in global supply chains has contributed to growth in their income per capita and to productivity gains, benefits that they will be reluctant to lose. [8]

Another example of why it will be difficult to upend entrenched supply chains came during a Chamber of Commerce panel discussion in May that discussed measures to safeguard US medical supply chains.[9] During the conference, medical supply and equipment industry leaders opposed “Buy American” policies and stressed the importance of refraining from large-scale changes in the near term, since the reshoring of production would require investments in infrastructure over a number of years as well as changes in the regulations that firms face. The creation of the EPN is itself a recognition that reshoring is only one option as US companies seek to reduce their reliance on China. Diversification of suppliers does not necessarily mean reshoring, and frequently has not. 

The disruptions caused by the pandemic complicate any assessment of the future of international supply chains. [10] However, analysis of the participation by EPN countries in global value-added supply chains shows that attempts to pull those countries away from China will confront strong economic ties.[11] Our research on value-added trade shows that since 2000, the global value chains (GVC) of Australia, India, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam have fared better than US GVC trade. Combined, these five members of the EPN have maintained a share of total world GVC trade in the range of 20-22 percent. Over the same period, the United States has seen its share of world GVC trade drop by 9.6 percentage points (as our prior analysis demonstrated).

Within the group of EPN countries, Japan’s GVC trade has also dropped substantially since 2000 (from 14.2 percent of world GVC trade in 2000 to 8.4 percent in 2017). In the same period, the combined GVC trade of Korea, Australia, India, and Vietnam relative to world GVC trade grew by 4 percentage points. The data also show that much of the value-added trade that had flowed early in this century between the United States and EPN countries has moved towards China. In 2000, GVC trade between the EPN members and the US was three times greater than GVC trade between the EPN countries and China. However, by 2017, the GVC trade of the EPN countries with China accounted for 3.7 percent of world GVC trade and had grown so much that it exceeded the group’s GVC trade with the US, which accounted for 2.6 percent of world GVC trade in 2017.  

Thus, from 2000-2017 the participation in global value-added supply chains of the United States and Japan has declined relative to China’s share. The countries to which the Trump Administration wants to redirect supply chains through the EPN saw much more growth in their intermediate goods trade with China than with the United States during 2000-2017. As data on value-added trade in 2018-2019 become available, we will be able to assess the evolution of value-added trade after the onset of the trade war and before the pandemic of 2020.

The efforts by US companies to diversify their Asian supply chains will find support in those countries that want to expand their export markets. Despite the weight of China in Asian-Pacific trade flows, some US manufacturers will gradually strengthen their supply chains with EPN countries, a goal that they might have achieved earlier had the United States not withdrawn from the TPP. 

Guy Erb is a former US 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 Ph.D. student in Economics at the University of Minnesota.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, position, or policy of Berkeley Research Group, LLC, or its other employees and affiliates.

***

© Washington International Trade Association

[ 1]  Reuters World News, “Trump Administration pushing to rip global supply chains from China: officials,” https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-USA-china/trump-administration-pushing-to-rip-global-supply-chains-from-china-officials-idUSKBN22G0BZ. Accessed May 5, 2020.

[2] Baker, Peter. “Trump Abandons Trans-Pacific Partnership, Obama’s Signature Trade Deal.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 23 Jan. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/01/23/us/politics/tpp-trump-trade-nafta.html.

[3] S. Katz, “The Enduring Promise of the Trans-Pacific Partnership,” The American Interest, https://www.the-american-interest.com/2020/05/01/the-enduring-promise-of-the-trans-pacific-partnership/. Accessed May 12, 2020.

[4]  W. Alschner and R. Panford-Walsh, “How much of the Transpacific Partnership is in the USMCA,” Ottawa Faculty of Law Working Paper No. 2019-28, June 26, 2019, p. 3.

[5] R. E. Lighthizer, “The Era of Offshoring U.S. Jobs Is Over,” The New York Times, May 1, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/11/opinion/coronavirus-jobs-offshoring.html.  Accessed May 12, 2020.

[6]  Kearney Reshoring Index, https://atkearney.com/operations-performance-transformation/us-reshoring-index/full-report, Accessed May 13, 2020. The 14 countries cited are China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Bangladesh, India, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Cambodia. 

[7]  W. Shoulberg, “Vietnam Is Becoming the Big Winner in the China Trade Wars,” Forbes, October 19, 2019. “Trump’s trade war convinced Lovesac to move its manufacturing out of China and into Vietnam,” Business Insider, February 2020. https://www.businessinsider.com/trade-war-lovesac-china-inside-vietnam-factory-2020-2#when-we-visited-the-factory-workers-were-swiftly-cutting-wood-stuffing-pillows-and-weaving-different-elements-of-lovesac-products-together-14.  Accessed May 19, 2020. “Chinese companies moving to Vietnam keep quiet on trade war to avoid the wrath of authorities and staff,” South China Morning Post, May 16, 2019. https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3010530/chinese-companies-moving-vietnam-keep-quiet-trade-war-avoid. Accessed May 19, 2020. 

[8]  A. Ignatenko, F. Raei, B. Mircheva, “Global Value Chains: What are the Benefits and Why do Countries Participate,” IMF Working Paper, January 2019, pp. 3 and 13.

[9] D. Palmer, “Medical Industry Leaders: Don’t Rush to Change Supply Chains,” POLITICO Morning Trade, 20 May 2020, www.politico.com/newsletters/morning-trade/2020/05/20/brazil-begins-bid-to-join-wto-government-procurement-agreement-787761. Accessed May 20, 2020.

[10] S&P Global—Panjiva, “We’re not there yet—18 coronavirus lessons from supply chains and financial data,” https://panjiva.com/research/were-not-there-yet-18-coronavirus-lessons-from-supply-chain-and-financial-data/33038. Accessed May 15, 2020.

[11] We base our analysis of global value chains (GVCs) on data from the University of International Business and Economics, GVC indicators sourced from the World Input-Output Database, OECD-ICIO database, Eora database, and Asian Development Bank multi-region input-output (MRIO) database. The Asian Development Bank database offers coverage of 62 nations across 35 industries but does not report out New Zealand individually. See G. Erb and S. Sommers, Global Supply Chains and the Pandemic, WITA, April 27, 2020, Bodog Poker|Welcome Bonus_the exporting. 

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