bodog sportsbook review|Most Popular_capacity. The bill includes /blog-topics/trade/ Fri, 14 Jul 2023 00:29:03 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.1 /wp-content/uploads/2018/08/android-chrome-256x256-80x80.png bodog sportsbook review|Most Popular_capacity. The bill includes /blog-topics/trade/ 32 32 bodog sportsbook review|Most Popular_capacity. The bill includes /blogs/world-trade-drive-prosperity/ Thu, 01 Jun 2023 16:34:15 +0000 /?post_type=blogs&p=37523 But the international architecture must adapt to a fast-changing world Rising from the ashes of three disastrous decades of deglobalization, extremism, and world war, our two institutions were built on...

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Rising from the ashes of three disastrous decades of deglobalization, extremism, and world war, our two institutions were built on the idea that thriving international trade goes hand in hand with global prosperity and stability. On balance, the post–World War II record has been impressive. Today fewer than 1 in 10 of the world’s people are poor, a fourfold reduction since 1990, as low- and middle-income countries have doubled their share of global trade. Pivotal to this leap in global income is a twentyfold increase in international trade since 1960.

Yet the tide is turning against economic interdependence and international trade. Trade restrictions and subsidies increased after the global financial crisis, and tensions escalated further as governments responded to the pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine by scrambling to secure strategic supply chains and rushing into trade-distorting policies. Taken too far, these measures may open the door to alliance-oriented policies that reduce economic efficiency and fragment the global trading system. They could backfire if short supply chains end up more vulnerable to localized shocks. Foreign direct investment is already increasingly concentrated among geopolitically aligned countries.

Should we abandon the idea of trade as a transformative force for good? Our answer is a resounding “No!” Despite all the talk, trade has continued to deliver even during recent crises. It has great potential to keep contributing to higher living standards and greater economic opportunities for decades to come.

There are at least three reasons international trade is crucial for global prosperity. First, it increases productivity by expanding the international division of labor. Second, it enables export-led economic growth by providing access to foreign markets. And third, it bolsters economic security by giving firms and households valuable outside options when negative shocks hit.

During the pandemic, trade and supply chains became vital to ramping up production and distribution of medical supplies, including vaccines. The power of international trade as a source of resilience has become evident again during the war in Ukraine. Deep and diversified international markets for grain enabled economies traditionally reliant on imports from Ukraine and Russia to make up shortfalls. Ethiopia, for example, lost all its wheat imports from Ukraine but now sources 20 percent of its wheat shipments from Argentina—a country from which it had not imported any wheat before.

Fragmentation’s costs

In this context, fragmentation could be costly for the global economy. A scenario in which the world divides into two separate trading blocs could lead to a 5 percent drop in global GDP, World Trade Organization (WTO) research shows. The IMF, meanwhile, reckons global losses from trade fragmentation could range from 0.2 to 7 percent of GDP. The costs may be higher when accounting for technological decoupling. Emerging market economies and low-income countries would be most at risk due to the loss of knowledge transfer.

Reinforcing the trading system to safeguard the benefits and prevent losses is important. But there is also an exciting forward-looking trade policy agenda that responds to the future of international trade, which we envision to be inclusive, green, and increasingly digitally and services driven.

Trade has done a lot to reduce poverty and inequality between countries. Yet we must acknowledge that it has left too many people behind—people in rich countries have been hurt by import competition, and people in poor countries have been unable to tap into global value chains and are often on the front line of environmental degradation and conflict over resources. As we told Group of Twenty officials in a joint paper our institutions wrote with the World Bank, it need not be this way. With the right domestic policies, countries can benefit from free trade’s great opportunities and lift those that have been left behind.

Addressing these underlying causes of discontent would solve people’s problems more effectively than the trade interventions we see today. Well-designed social safety nets, greater investment in training, and policies in areas like credit, housing, and infrastructure that help, not hinder, workers to move across industries, occupations, and companies could all play a part.

The current push toward more diversified supply chains presents great opportunities for countries and communities that have struggled to integrate into global value chains: bringing more of them into production networks—what we call “re-globalization”—would be good for supply resilience, growth, and development.

Many of today’s most pressing global problems will not be solved without international trade. We cannot overcome the climate crisis and get to net zero greenhouse gas emissions without trade. We need trade to get low-carbon technology and services to everywhere they are needed. Open and predictable trade lowers the cost of decarbonization by expanding market size, enabling scale economies, and learning by doing.

To provide one example, the price of solar power has fallen by almost 90 percent since 2010. Forty percent of this decline has come from scale economies made possible partly by trade and cross-border value chains, the WTO has estimated.

Cooperation’s possibilities

By updating global trade rules, governments can help trade thrive in new areas that would expand opportunities, for emerging market economies especially. Even as goods trade stalls, trade in services continues to expand rapidly. Global exports of digital services such as consulting delivered by video calls reached $3.8 trillion in 2022, or 54 percent of total services exports. 

Some efforts are already underway. A group of nearly 90 WTO members, including China, the EU, and the US, are currently negotiating basic rules on digital trade. Shared rules would make trade more predictable, reduce duplication, and cut the compliance costs that typically weigh heaviest on the smallest businesses.

Similarly, multilateral cooperation and common standards could speed the green transition while preventing market fragmentation and minimizing negative policy spillovers to other countries. Bringing more small and women-owned businesses into global production networks—digital and otherwise—would spread the gains from trade more broadly across societies.

Despite geopolitical tensions, meaningful cooperation on trade remains possible. We saw this last June when all WTO members came together to deliver agreements on curbing harmful fisheries subsidies, removing barriers to food aid, and enhancing access to the intellectual property behind COVID vaccines. Governments can build on those successes at the WTO’s next ministerial meeting in February 2024. And recent work by our institutions points to a way to defuse tensions in sensitive areas such as subsidies through data, analysis, and common perspectives on policy design.

Navigating trade policies through the current turbulent period is challenging. But keeping trade open and looking for new opportunities for closer cooperation will be essential to build on existing gains and to help deliver solutions to climate change and other global challenges.

The IMF, WTO, and other leading international institutions have a critical role in charting a way forward that is in the collective interest. We must cooperate tirelessly to strengthen the multilateral trading system and demonstrate that our own institutions can adapt to a fast-changing world. The IMF has a mandate to support the balanced growth of international trade. The WTO remains the only forum that brings all economies together to advance trade reform. We cannot afford to stand still. 

KRISTALINA GEORGIEVA is the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

NGOZI OKONJO-IWEALA is director-general of the World Trade Organization.

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]]> bodog sportsbook review|Most Popular_capacity. The bill includes /blogs/breaking-up-is-hard/ Fri, 21 Apr 2023 13:41:13 +0000 /?post_type=blogs&p=37661 The Biden administration is on a campaign to fundamentally alter the supply chains that feed America’s vast appetite for foreign-made goods. This effort is driven in part by the public’s...

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The Biden administration is on a campaign to fundamentally alter the supply chains that feed America’s vast appetite for foreign-made goods. This effort is driven in part by the public’s demand for protection against the sorts of shortages that made everything from butter to SUVs scarce during the Covid-19 pandemic. Real enthusiasm for reordering supply chains, however, is stoked by perceived military and economic threats to the U.S. from a more assertive China.

On her first visit to India last November, Treasury Secretary Yellen called for “like-minded countries” to work together to reduce the world’s dependence on “risky countries,” taking clear aim at China. Such statements play well on Capitol Hill, where members of Congress outcompete each other to show who is most disgusted by China. But they pose problems for many of America’s trade partners who do not share America’s desires to decouple.

Tangled Webs

The Biden administration inherited Trumpera policies intended to force China to clean up its predatory treatment of American intellectual property — patents, trade secrets and the like. The tariffs, which remain on two thirds of U.S. imports from China, were justified by the Trump administration not only by claims that American companies were forced to share technology as a condition of doing business there, but also as a means of reducing U.S. dependence on China for natural resources and some industrial products, and as payback for past unfair trade practices.

America’s list of China’s economic threats is long, but concern that it will dominate future “chokepoints” — supply nodes that can be used to restrict access to critical materials — drives current policy. And recent Chinese actions have only reinforced fears of economic coercion. Over the past few years, China has used its economic leverage to retaliate against perceived slights from more than a dozen countries, slapping on tariffs and negating long-standing trade relations. Last October, the Biden administration deployed chokepoints of its own to forestall Chinese hightech development, banning exports of advanced semiconductors and the equipment needed to make them.

Although it features prominently in the press, America’s “tech war” with China is only part of the wider effort to reshape U.S.-Sino trade relations. The White House is determined to reduce future dependence on China through “reshoring” and “friend-shoring” of the activities that supply American markets. The goal of moving supply chains away from China now guides U.S. trade and investment policies, its economic relationships with allies, and its refusal to restore the World Trade Organization’s authority to act as an effective arbiter of trade disputes.

As the world’s most innovative economy and its largest importer — American merchandise imports exceeded $3 trillion in 2022 — the United States has many levers to move global supply chains. A review of these tools shows, however, that while some can be used effectively at least in the near term, none comes without substantial economic costs. There are also profound consequences of this campaign for U.S. global leadership.

America’s efforts to restructure global supply chains reflect a fundamental rethinking of how the global trading system should work. No longer willing to abide by WTO treaty norms, especially non-discrimination against other members, the U.S. is leading the formation of exclusive trade and investment networks. Other countries also seek to reduce dependence on China and are eager to capture market share it loses. But they still resist U.S. efforts to force them to decouple from China.

The Usefulness of Trump’s Trade-War Tariffs

The Biden administration has left untouched the Trump-era tariffs levied in 2018 and 2019. This failure to reform Trump’s tariff policies, which represented an about-face from decades of U.S. commitment to rules-based open global trade, surprised many who followed the Biden campaign’s cogent criticism of the former president’s approach. However, since rearranging supply chains and making them less vulnerable to geopolitical tides is a priority for the Biden White House, retaining the Section 301 tariffs gives the administration broad discretion in responding to perceived injuries and provides a ready-made tool for altering U.S. trade patterns. Tariffs on China, which still average 19 percent, have helped to reduce its share of U.S. goods imports from 22 percent at the start of the trade war to only 17 percent by the end of 2022.

This reduction in China’s share of the U.S. market has caused considerable economic harm to U.S. interests — costs that now seem to have been forgotten in the rush to remake U.S.-China economic relations. To date, U.S. Customs has collected $167 billion in duties on imports from China subject to Section 301 tariffs, which amounts to a hefty tax on U.S. businesses and consumers, as shown by several detailed studies of U.S. import prices. This sum, it’s worth noting, dwarfs revenue collected under Trump-era scattershot trade actions that also hit targets ranging from Canada to Turkey to the EU as well as China. And, incredibly, Americans continue to pay these import taxes while 2022 U.S. imports from China will exceed the value purchased in 2018, when the trade war began.

Because the largest share of U.S. imports from China are “intermediate goods” — goods, like engine parts, used to make other goods — these tariffs make U.S. businesses that rely on inputs from China less competitive against their foreign rivals at home and abroad. An analysis by Kyle Handley (Michigan), Fariha Kamal (U.S. Census) and Ryan Monarch (Federal Reserve), using detailed information on the activities of American manufacturers, found that Trump-era tariffs lowered export growth for those exposed to them, with an effect equivalent to a 2 percent to 4 percent tariff levied on their foreign sales. And there’s no reason to believe these tariffs are currently less damaging.

While hurting U.S. exports, tariffs do not often result in “reshoring” — that is, returning production (and jobs) to the United States. A recent study by the Peterson Institute for International Economics found that trade subject to the Trump tariffs was diverted away from China toward Mexico and other parts of East Asia, not to Detroit or Seattle or Dallas.

Mr. Biden has made the notion of “democracies versus autocracies” an organizing principle of his foreign policy. Unfortunately, in a world with low barriers to trade, blocking an autocracy from participation in one’s supply chains does not imply that democratically governed economies will take its place. Indeed, one of the ironies of the U.S.-China trade war is the bonus it has provided to Vietnam, an economy guided by the country’s communist party. Vietnam’s share of exports to the U.S. increased markedly after the levy of tariffs on Chinese goods including footwear and apparel. Adding to the irony, the shift was less than what it appears: these Vietnamese- labeled goods undoubtedly contain Chinese content, and some are made in Chinese- owned factories.

Most striking is Vietnam’s emergence as a site for multinational electronics manufacturing. Following the start of the U.S.-China trade war, China’s share of U.S. imports of electronics fell rapidly, losing 10 percentage points in four years (see figure below). Over the same interval, Vietnam’s share of the U.S. electronics import market rose by six points.

The shift of manufacturers to Vietnam is even more dramatic in specific products. Before the trade war, China provided 51 percent of U.S. imports of broadcasting equipment, almost 19 times the share imported from Vietnam. By 2020, China’s share had fallen to 39 percent, while Vietnam’s share had ballooned to 11 percent. An important reason for Vietnam’s success in raising its U.S. presence is its ongoing market reforms and opening to foreign investment. Perhaps the U.S. would do well to focus on whether traded products are made under competitive market conditions rather than under systems of government other than our own.

Strikingly, not one U.S. trade partner joined the American effort to change China’s ways by blanketing China with tariffs. While China’s share of U.S. imports fell, the rest of the world maintained normal trade relations with the export giant. China’s share of world manufacturing exports actually rose, reaching 19 percent in 2020, up from 18 percent in 2017. Clearly, the trade war failed to move the needle on global supplies.

Redirecting Semiconductor Supply Chains

Semiconductors are the poster child for economic chokepoints. The geographic concentration of fabrication plants, or “fabs,” has been identified as a threat to long-term U.S. access to chips. Because about 70 percent are manufactured in Asia — including almost all of the most advanced chips — many fear that conflict in the region would prevent Western access to the semiconductors that have become critical to modern life. Finding this situation untenable, the U.S. passed the CHIPS and Science Act in August 2022 with the aim of increasing investment in domestic semiconductor manufacturing capacity. The bill includes over $50 billion in subsidies for construction of new onshore fabrication facilities, with Micron and Intel among those announcing plans for new U.S. fabs.

While working to reduce U.S. reliance on Asian manufacturing, the U.S. has also made use of its own chokepoints in the semiconductor industry. In October 2022, the Biden administration announced unprecedented controls on sales to China of high-end chips used in artificial intelligence and supercomputing along with chip design software and semiconductor manufacturing equipment. These controls represent a far-reaching effort to alter not only today’s shipments of advanced semiconductors, but to ensure that China is cut off from advanced industrial supply chains for years to come.

There’s no free lunch here, though. Efforts to reduce reliance on Asian chip fabs and to deny China access to American-made Bodog Poker chips and equipment come with costs and risks. In addition to the money spent on direct government subsidies to new fabs, the U.S. may pay permanently higher prices for semiconductors made domestically or by non-Asian suppliers. Executives from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation, which is now tooling a $12 billion semiconductor plant in Arizona, have been clear that the higher cost of building and operating the plant in the U.S. will filter into future chip prices. The Taiwanese market leader is now planning its next Arizona plant, which will produce 3-nanometer chips — the advanced chips export controls now seek to restrict — at an estimated cost of $28 billion.

Not surprisingly, not everyone is eager for initiatives that drive up the costs of advanced computing. America’s unilateral export controls have provoked pushback from allies, some of whom are being blocked in efforts to sell chip-design technology and manufacturing equipment to Chinese customers. The Biden administration continues to persuade the Dutch and the Japanese, makers of key elements in the semiconductor supply chain, to join the control regime, but to date the U.S. must rely on extraterritorial enforcement through sanctions to prevent sales to China.

Europe appears set to oppose the aggressive approach to technology decoupling taken by the United States. At the January 2023 World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos, French Minster for the Economy and Finances Bruno Le Maire pushed back, arguing that “China cannot be out, China must be in.”

U.S. semiconductor subsidies and its new export controls work together to form a “herebut- not-there” strategy for chip manufacturing. In a world of dizzyingly complex supply chains, it’s difficult to see how such a strategy can be successfully applied to more than advanced chips. Major technology-producing countries rely on each other for different stages of production and for different varieties of the same type of good. The United States currently exports high-value chips and imports low-value chips, so removing China from supply chains would require the U.S. to prioritize basic chip production at the same time it is ramping up advanced chip production.

In short, subsidizing new fab plants at home and blocking exports of advanced chips to China will alter America’s semiconductor supply chain — but export controls offer an incomplete template for reordering the lion’s share of global flows of these globally produced commodities. In time, global players that don’t share the Biden administration’s priorities will find a way to work around U.S. technology and markets.

Friend-Shoring: Creating a Future with Exclusive Trading Clubs

Although it is unwilling to negotiate new trade deals, the Biden administration sees economic agreements focused on labor, environment and governance standards as a tool for shaping the future of global supply chains. The newly launched Indo-Pacific Economic Framework is the clearest expression of this strategy, as it aims to build a circle of “friends” who commit to American values on labor and the environment and share American aspirations for greener and fairer economic outcomes.

For the United States, IPEF is a second chance to achieve some of what was lost when Donald Trump pulled the plug on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a Pacific-rim economic alliance whose downside seems to have been the fact that it was an initiative of the Obama administration. The Biden administration wants to bolster American military presence in the region with deeper economic ties. But IPEF has a second utility: it’s a mechanism for an end-run around China’s manufacturing capabilities. Using commitments to high standards for how goods are designed and new rules for how they are produced, the U.S. hopes to build an alternative to the TPP that China will never be allowed to join.

With much of its domestic coalition opposed to new international economic agreements, the Biden Administration hopes that transfer of its domestic priorities to IPEF negotiations will appease those who see anything that smacks of globalization as a loss for the United States. The White House has designed an effort that is free of new market opening, binding commitments, or even a whiff of U.S. concessions. Unfortunately, the lack of any meaningful U.S. concessions makes the IPEF a hard sell in developing Asia.

South and Southeast Asian nations are eager for deeper economic engagement with America. However, without some tangible reward for meeting U.S. demands and no obvious cost of failing to do so, leaders in these countries have little leverage to overcome their own domestic opposition to the “high standards” envisioned for IPEF that are certain to increase production costs. Equally important, U.S. rhetoric and demands for friend-shoring threaten to upset the delicate balance the region has achieved between reliance on the American security umbrella and trade/investment ties to China.

China is the first or second most important trade partner for all IPEF countries, as seen in the figure at right. Indeed, 11 of the 13 countries joining IPEF negotiations with the United States are already members of the ASEAN-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which features a platform for economic cooperation as part of its mandate. Through RCEP, almost all IPEF partners are members of a free-trade agreement with China. Generous rules of origin contained in RCEP encourage development of value chains among its members.

A key question for IPEF, then, is whether the agreement will constrain the partners to source inputs only from other IPEF “friends.” By eliminating China as a source of intermediate goods, participants in IPEF would risk degrading their export competitiveness. If the U.S. were offering preferential market access to those who friend-shore, taking on new obligations that raise production costs to serve U.S. buyers might make economic sense. And the U.S. may ultimately feel obliged to make concessions of this sort — probably not through preferential tariffs but through rules that restrict the products that can be brought into the U.S. market, or through price mechanisms, such as carbon border taxes, that reward “friendly” green producers.

Reordering the Global Order

The rules-based international trade system as we know it is on the endangered list. With China seen as willing to subsize its industries, block imports and steal technology, playing by WTO rules looks like a sucker’s game to many Americans. U.S. diplomats still pay lip service to the importance of the system, but the Biden administration continues to block the appointment of new WTO appellate judges needed to enforce WTO rules — as did Presidents Obama and Trump. The negative U.S. response to the recent WTO ruling on former President Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs — in which national security was found to be inadequate, in this instance, as a basis for trade restrictions — makes clear that America no longer intends to abide by WTO rules that interfere with its geopolitical objectives.

In its place, the U.S. is building an economic system designed to satisfy its goal of restricting trade with China. Trump-era trade-war tariffs continue to tax U.S. imports. U.S. semiconductor-related exports are now subject to powerful controls, with the promise of additional controls on advanced tech sales to come. And the U.S. has turned to Asia, the region most deeply intertwined with the Chinese economy, to create a future network of “like-minded” friends.

The costs of this pivot away from a multinational trading system built on nondiscrimination have yet to be tallied. For some, China’s authoritarianism at home and bellicose behavior abroad demand that the U.S. develop a new, exclusionary framework. In this view, the price of inaction is too high, so the demise of the WTO should be seen as unavoidable collateral damage. The path forward is thus clear: reduce economic exchange with China as quickly as possible.

The problem here is that even if the U.S. succeeds in dropping China from its supply chains, the latter will almost certainly remain the world’s largest exporter and second largest importer. Without the support of allies and partners, the U.S. cannot be successful in doing more than isolating its own market.

U.S. allies and partners are not prepared to decouple from China under current conditions. Chinese intermediate goods will be built into the products they sell, their exporters will seek to profit from the Chinese market, and their multinationals will continue to invest in China. U.S. production will be burdened by its isolation from least-cost suppliers and thereby hindered in its ability to remain competitive in foreign markets.

The U.S. urgently needs to clarify the extent to which it intends to remove Chinesemade goods from its supply chains (including those that funnel Chinese inputs through the factories of our trading partners). And if the goal is containing an aggressive China, clarification won’t be easy.

For much of what the world buys from China has little connection to high-tech competition and is made in privately owned factories with little connection to the Chinese state. Indeed, a healthy private sector may prove the only effective buffer against increasing authoritarianism from Beijing. Is the U.S. truly better off if it alone turns to higher-cost suppliers for these products?

So far, the Biden administration seems set on its path — trade with trusted partners! — but not how far down the road it wants to go in excluding China. The White House has said that the U.S. does not want to truly decouple economically from China, yet U.S. actions on 5G telecommunications equipment and now semiconductors send a different signal. The result is heightened uncertainty for international businesses as they plan where and how much to invest.

President Biden has made consultation with allies a hallmark of his foreign policy. Such consultation is imperative when the U.S. needs the support of partners who see economic relations with China in a different light.

The U.S. and EU have created the Trade and Technology Council (TTC), a coordinating platform that proved useful in crafting a collective response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But the TTC is also a natural venue for the U.S. to coordinate beyond sanctions and export controls. It could be used as a platform for clarifying where dependence on trade with China puts our economies at risk. The EU and the U.S. could also use the TTC to coordinate the search for alternative suppliers. And if new sources need to be created, the TTC could help the U.S. and the EU avoid a subsidy war with each reaching to grab whatever jobs China-proofing their economies will create.

Lastly, the U.S. would be wise to reconsider the role of standards as a mechanism for keeping China out of new trade arrangements. China will be able to meet many labor and environmental standards, including the “decarbonization” of production, sooner than many developing countries that the U.S. would like to include in its exclusive trade clubs. Better to declare up front that China is not welcome than to pretend that they’re ineligible because they can never measure up to our standards.

By the same token, positioning high standards as an aspirational goal for U.S. supply chains rather than the price of admission would create a setting more welcoming to poorer countries that do not currently meet them. Although developing countries may desire the fair working conditions, clean environments and digitally enabled trade being promoted by the U.S. in its IPEF initiative, they differ in how far and how fast they will be able (or want) to commit to American standards. If the IPEF is to bear fruit, the U.S. must aim at building a trading network that does not yet exist rather than asking potential partners to meet standards that do not fit their current circumstances.

* * *

As the multilateral trading system frays, the United States has begun to build a new system that suits its current priorities. At the top of this list is reducing China’s role in U.S. supply chains. But current rules codified by the WTO hinder the creation of a network reserved for the “like-minded.” And so far, the U.S. is not carrying its friends along on the journey. Unless Washington tempers ambitions for isolating China, the U.S. risks isolating itself instead. This would represent a failure of leadership that would weaken American competitiveness and leave our friends and allies more — not less — dependent on Chinese markets.

Mary Lovely is the Anthony M. Solomon senior fellow at the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics.

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]]> bodog sportsbook review|Most Popular_capacity. The bill includes /blogs/new-horizon-us-trade-policy/ Tue, 14 Mar 2023 20:40:44 +0000 /?post_type=blogs&p=37409 Key Developments and Questions for the Biden Administration   Under President Biden, the United States is reinvigorating its trade policy to better confront the major challenges of the 21st century,...

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]]> Key Developments and Questions for the Biden Administration

 

Under President Biden, the United States is reinvigorating its trade policy to better confront the major challenges of the 21st century, but key questions remain.

U.S. trade policy—and with it the rules and institutions that constitute global economic architecture—has rarely been static. But over the past five years, beginning with the passage of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada-Agreement (USMCA) and continuing with the Biden administration’s innovative trade initiatives currently being negotiated with partners in Europe, Asia, and the Americas, the future of U.S. trade has never been more open-ended.

Climate, once largely absent from global trade rules and agreements, has vaulted to the forefront of U.S. trade priorities. By contrast, market access, long considered the fulcrum of trade deals, is absent from the Biden administration’s signature trade initiatives in the Asia-Pacific and is being deployed selectively in a sectoral arrangement with the European Union involving steel and aluminum. These new policy directions are occurring against several major shifts in domestic economic policy and global economic governance: 1) a pivot toward industrial policy in the United States driven by three major pieces of legislation—the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA); 2) a dramatic turnabout in global attitudes toward supply chain management and the balance between efficiency, resilience, and security in cross-border trade; and 3) the obsolescence of the World Trade Organization (WTO) as a forum for resolving trade disputes.

This issue brief examines some of the key trade initiatives pursued by the Biden administration to date. It then sets out key questions facing U.S. trade policy in a global environment defined by volatility and renewed ambition to tackle the great challenges of the 21st century, such as climate change, inequality, and great power competition.

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Over the past two years, the Biden administration has pursued a number of innovative trade initiatives that in different ways aim to redefine the scope and purpose of U.S. trade relations. These initiatives differ both in structure from traditional free trade agreements (FTAs) and also in their substance, most notably in the emphasis they place on climate aims and worker empowerment over tariff reductions.

Variation on a multilateral theme

The United States’ decision not to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) it negotiated—now the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP)—highlighted the skepticism among policymakers and the American public of traditional trade agreements. This does not mean that the United States should or will step back from multilateral engagement and even direct trade negotiations that could lead to enhanced access to the U.S. market, but it has forced a reimagining of what economic engagement looks like. Four examples of this are already underway in the Biden administration:

  • The Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF): Launched in May 2022, IPEF established a framework for negotiations among 13 nations: Australia, Brunei, India, Indonesia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, the United States, and Vietnam. These negotiations aim to establish an updated model of economic engagement across borders. Market access is not on the table, but there are four pillars that offer broad and potentially substantial levels of investment, regulatory alignment, and coordination around industrial standards and supply chains between the United States and participating nations—depending on the specificity of the outcome and its implementation. These pillars are: 1) connected economy, or trade; 2) resilient economy, or supply chains; 3) clean economy; and 4) fair economy. IPEF members may select among the pillars and are not required to agree to all four.

    There are two key points to consider: First, the nations associated with IPEF have significant—though not complete—overlap with the nations that negotiated the TPP. This clearly shows that economic engagement in the Indo-Pacific remains a priority for the United States, even if the nature of that engagement has shifted.

    Second, and related, the different pillars of IPEF use language that closely resembles previous FTAs without incorporating market access mechanisms—such as tariff reductions—that raised valid concerns on the part of climate and worker advocates in the United States. For example, the “connected economy” pillar seeks to increase and improve trade among the 13 nations by collaborating and coordinating on core issues such as labor rights, environmental protection, transparency in rule-making and regulations, and facilitation measures such as simplifying customs procedures.

  • The Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity (APEP): Since June 2022, the U.S. State Department and U.S. trade representative (USTR) have engaged with partner countries across the Americas—Barbados, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Peru, and Uruguay—on a similar series of negotiations aimed at producing a similar set of commitments as IPEF. The ongoing consultations have five focus areas: 1) reinvigorating regional economic institutions and mobilizing investment; 2) making more resilient supply chains; 3) updating the basic bargain; 4) creating clean energy jobs and advancing decarbonization and biodiversity; and 5) ensuring sustainable and inclusive trade.

    The APEP negotiations do not have as clear of a precursor as IPEF, which can partially explain the interesting collection of nations associated with this effort. Politics and existing trade relations vary among the included bodog online casino nations—though, on the latter, most of the nations included already have existing bilateral trade agreements or frameworks with the United States. With Ecuador, the United States has a Trade and Investment Council. With Uruguay, there is a Trade and Investment Framework Agreement. Barbados is the only nation where there is currently no agreement or framework. The rest have an existing FTA.

  • The U.S.- Taiwan Initiative on 21st- Century Trade: Also in June 2022, the United States and Taiwan began consultations over ways to deepen the trade and economic relationship between the two nations. This evolved into official negotiations focused on building out the details listed within the negotiating mandate, which has similar construct and charges as IPEF and APEP—notably, a commitment to focus on core issues related to trade facilitation that could help further open economic doors, potentially in the form of an FTA.
  • The U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council (TTC): Among the Biden administration’s earliest trade-related actions, the establishment of the TTC occurred as part of a broader statement of joint work and commitments between the United States and the European Union. The TTC’s main charge is to foster cooperation in trans-Atlantic trade and investment, specifically focused on emerging technologies and infrastructure.

    The just-announced Clean Energy Incentives Dialogue will be a part of the TTC and focused on coordinating incentive programs. The main goals will be to avoid trans-Atlantic trade tensions and to ensure that such programs are mutually reinforcing and do not simply lead to windfall profits for companies that could play the two against each other for more and better subsidies. This type of dialogue is necessary to guard against excessive corporate welfare and keep the focus on clean energy deployment and strong domestic economies.

Sector-specific trade initiatives

In addition to multilateral negotiations, the Biden administration has pursued initiatives aimed at shifting manufacturing methods and protecting against unfair trade practices in key sectors. This can take into account the global competitiveness of those industries while building up both domestic industries and economic ties across nations.

The clearest example of this is:

  • The Global Arrangement on Sustainable Steel and Aluminum (GASSA): Combining the goals of decarbonization and competitiveness in the steel and aluminum sectors helped lead to the formation of this partnership between the United States and the European Union. This sectoral collaboration, combined with initial commitments to drop tariffs and duties on each other’s products, aims to establish a market for steel and aluminum that is based on lowering carbon intensity and combating global overcapacity—while placing barriers in front of nonparticipating nations.

A potential example:

  • The critical minerals buyers club: In order to achieve decarbonization, the world is going to need a sustainable and resilient supply of critical minerals, such as lithium, cobalt, and multiple rare earth minerals, to build the critical materials that power the clean economy, such as batteries and solar panels. To help assure that reliable supply, the United States, European Union, and potentially other G-7 nations, such as Japan and the United Kingdom, have begun discussions about a targeted trade pact would allow for critical minerals that are mined or processed in those nations to count toward requirements under Section 30D of the Inflation Reduction Act and—conceivably—some related reciprocity. (More below on the tension related to this credit)

An example focused more on information sharing and collaboration is:

  • The Industrial Deep Decarbonization Initiative (IDDI): The IDDI, established via the Clean Energy Ministerial and co-led by the United Kingdom and India, now counts Germany, Canada, and the United States as members. The effort focuses on supporting and identifying policies that lead to decarbonized industrial materials. This includes standardized carbon assessments, procurement targets and policies, and targeted investments.

Other trade policy mechanisms

There are policies being implemented and debated domestically that can help forge pathways for bi- and multilateral trade discussions. Among others, these notably include:

  • The carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM): Enforcement, via duties and tariffs on nations that do not abide by established rules or meet domestic standards, is a necessary element of trade policy, and climate-focused trade policy is no exception. Implementing duties on imported goods based upon either carbon intensity or a carbon price associated with embedded carbon—known now as a carbon border adjustment mechanism—has been discussed for decades, but only recently has it moved forward into reality in the European Union. The United States has grappled with a CBAM since early discussions of cap and trade, and it is now becoming its own stand-alone policy up for debate.
  • Green public procurement: Utilizing procurement to further domestic economic needs is nothing new (see: domestic content preferences), but countries are now deploying the power of the public dollar to help drive down emissions in manufactured goods. In the United States, this is referred to as Buy Clean. This method of procurement leverage can be coordinated and combined across borders and is being discussed at venues such as the IDDI.

Key questions

Forging a new paradigm on trade, especially in the shadow of the current intersection of trade, climate, and industrial policy will require answering multiple, layered questions. Six are laid out here.

Climate and trade: Synergies or strains?

Until recently, climate was at best a peripheral concern in management of global trade. No U.S. FTA explicitly acknowledges the climate crisis or invokes the Paris Agreement, nor does any multilateral trade agreement or institution. The Peru FTA and its Annex on Forest Sector Governance contributes to the fight against climate change by providing tools to enforce regulations around unsustainable timber harvesting in the Amazon, but the focus is on deforestation rather than emissions. Now, under President Joe Biden, climate has become a front-burner issue in trade policy. USTR Katherine Tai has repeatedly emphasized the need to align trade with climate and environmental issues more broadly. True to that promise, one of the four pillars of the administration’s signature trade initiatives in the Asia-Pacific is focused on “Clean Energy, Decarbonization, and Infrastructure.” Other climate-related provisions are reportedly integrated across other pillars. Even more ambitiously, the GASSA seeks to use a sectoral tariff structure to facilitate trade in green steel.

This pivot from climate avoidance to climate action in U.S. trade policy is a welcome change, but not one without frictions. Climate was not a significant consideration for the architects of the rules and institutions that constitute the global trading system. While some nations have sought to incorporate climate-related provisions into trade agreements, there is no established mechanism or standard for seeking to differentiate between less and more climate-friendly trade in virtually all cross-border commerce that occurs today. For this reason, there is little motivation at present for actors in export-focused sectors to consider greenhouse gas emissions when seeking to make their goods attractive to export markets, except where the destination market has regulatory standards different than those of the home market or procurement preferences for cleaner goods, or where a lower-emissions production method is cheaper and permits a more competitive price relative to like products.

Adjusting for this negative externality, regardless of the precise mechanisms used, will be a technical and administrative challenge, likely involving the development of shared metrics for assessing embedded carbon; agreement over monitoring and reporting of emissions at industrial facilities; and convergence around a list of climate-aligned goods, technologies, and practices. Perhaps more dauntingly, it will be a political challenge. Favoring climate-friendly trade will have disparate impacts across jurisdictions and sectors, particularly in industries where a wide disparity exists in the carbon intensity of production methods of inputs and finished goods, such as steel and steel-derived goods such as automobiles. Middle-income economies whose growth model depends on carbon-intensive manufacturing methods may object to any effort to rewrite trade rules to favor greener practices; yet even countries that stand to benefit from such a paradigm shift may find themselves squabbling over the details, as exemplified by the unresolved tensions between the European Union’s CBAM, the U.S.-EU GASSA, and other proposals such as the German government’s climate club. And even if these matters can be resolved, the interaction between green industrial policy and trade rules remains contested and unresolved.

What is the future of market access?

Perhaps the Biden administration’s sharpest pivot from previous administrations’ trade policy has been its cautious approach in pursuing new or revisiting existing free trade agreements or to engage in any trade negotiations that could result in enhanced access to the U.S. market by trading partners. USTR Tai has called FTAs “20th century tools,” and the major initiatives the Biden administration has pursued to date have sought to innovate away from the conventional trade agreement model that has dominated U.S. and international trade deals for much of the past 30 years.

IPEF, for example, is unprecedented in that it seeks to deepen U.S. economic engagement and strengthen U.S. presence across a strategically vital region without using the tools of a traditional FTA—that is, market access linked to constraints on state regulation of covered goods and services backed by a dispute resolution framework. The U.S.-Taiwan trade initiative and the recently announced APEP emulate the IPEF model in seeking to align regulatory practices in a way that strengthens worker power and climate action while facilitating financial flows to important sectors. The GASSA, while still lacking public detail, is ultimately about imposing market barriers—that is, imposing higher tariff rates on certain steel and aluminum exporters that engage in highly polluting manufacturing or unfair market practices. Notably, none of these initiatives require congressional approval.

But it seems unlikely that the executive branch—either under this administration or successive ones—will permanently foreswear market-access-driven trade agreements, for a number of reasons. First, many of the country’s most important geostrategic and economic partners—including Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and Kenya, among others—are actively seeking such agreements and view them as a barometer of the vitality of bilateral relations. Second, sourcing of key inputs for the technologies and industries that will power a green transition or ensure national security may require market access arrangements not presently facilitated by global trade networks; the European Union’s recent Green Deal Industrial Plan included strengthened trade relations with key partners, and the United States may find itself needing to pursue a similar approach, particularly as it involves market access for critical raw materials. Third, despite their historically deregulatory role, FTAs have the potential to raise labor, environmental, and other standards and promote climate action if designed or updated with those goals in mind.

At minimum, there is ample reason for the United States to seek to renegotiate existing FTAs to eradicate some of their most pernicious, investor-tilted elements and strengthen their labor and environmental provisions. The USMCA, which resulted from renegotiation of NAFTA, contains far stronger labor rights enforcement provisions—including by allowing governments to file formal disputes over labor rights violations that occur at an individual factory, rather than requiring that violations be widespread and occur in a sustained and recurring manner. Political limitations foreclosed a similar level of improvement on the enforcement of environmental violations under the agreement. The United States could pursue stronger, yet similar improvements in other existing FTAs and preferential trade agreements. One clear opportunity for such reforms would be in the renewal of the terms of the African Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA), slated for 2025; meanwhile, the governments of Colombia and Chile have given signs they are open to renegotiating their FTAs with the United States, presenting another opportunity to advance a new model for market access.

How does industrial policy relate to trade policy?

One of the biggest questions facing U.S. trade policy does not, at first blush, appear to be a trade issue at all. Industrial policy is defined by the Roosevelt Institute as “any government policy that encourages resources to shift from one industry or sector into another, by changing input costs, output prices, or other regulatory treatment.” The purpose of industrial policy, as set out by former Director of the National Economic Council Brian Deese, is to use “public investment to spur private investment and innovation” in “areas where relying on private industry, on its own, will not mobilize the investment necessary to achieve our core economic and national security interests.”

Industrial policy has been at the heart of the Biden administration’s major legislative achievements. These include the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the IIJA—which in different ways seek to restructure the American economy through a combination of direct subsidies, tax incentives, and support for research and innovation.

Industrial policy does not always have significant implications for economic relations with foreign partners and can be focused solely on developing domestic economic capacity—for example, investments in transportation infrastructure and extraction of raw materials that are used in domestic manufacturing. But to the extent that industrial policy appears to encourage domestic production of goods or advantage domestic-made products over foreign ones, it may give rise to allegations from trading partners that it runs afoul of long-standing principles of “national treatment” embedded in most FTAs and the WTO charter.

The modern American industrial policy

The Biden administration adopted industrial policy as part of its broader economic strategy before the passage of multiple pieces of legislation last year. This can be seen by the quick movement on executive orders that directed agencies to expand utilization of domestic manufacturing and incorporate high-quality jobs standards across decision-making. This commitment intensified last year with the passage of three monumental pieces of legislation—the IIJA, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act—as well as with the establishment of the Made in America Office and the deepening commitment to the Buy America initiative and the thorough focus and analysis of place-based investing and policy. In particular, those three pieces of legislation incorporated core tenets of industrial policy that will seed further growth of these ideas in years to come:

  • The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act: The IIJA’s main thrust is a massive investment in domestic infrastructure, but those investments include broad domestic content standards and labor standards for construction jobs. Additionally, the legislation in its Build America, Buy America section codified the Made in America Office and strengthened and updated the Buy America initiative for the 21st century. It also targeted infrastructure investments to industries that will drive the U.S. economy and the global economy into the future. This notably includes electric grid modernization and a massive expansion of electric vehicle charging network.
  • The CHIPS and Science Act: This bill went through multiple iterations, some better than others, and landed on a version that provides significant investment in semiconductor research and development as well as direct support for building production facilities of semiconductors. These chips are critical to multiple industries, most especially the auto industry, as we learned during the supply chain crunch of 2021. This research and development, plus direct support to construct, is clearly targeted to expand the country’s domestic foothold in the industry and alleviate its overreliance on global supply chains for this critical product.
  • The Inflation Reduction Act: This piece of legislation devotes more than $350 billion toward climate policies that are essentially a collection of consumer-focused tax incentives and subsidies for consumption of clean technologies or support for production of those technologies, alongside some direct support to help existing manufacturing decarbonize. Most of these incentives have labor standards attached to them that will help ensure that the construction jobs created will be good, union jobs, with efforts to diversify the industry and support workers from historically disadvantaged backgrounds. The incentives for renewables and electric vehicles also have varying layers of associated domestic content provisions. Finally, many investments in the Inflation Reduction Act are place based and regionally focused in supporting energy communities.

These laws each work through different pathways and with different goals, but they are mutually reinforcing, and the sum of their impacts will greater than their parts. As Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm has remarked, the IIJA is the “backbone,” the CHIPS and Science Act the “brain,” and the Inflation Reduction Act the “lungs” of U.S. industrial policy.

America’s most important trading partners are no strangers to industrial policy. In the latter half of the 20th century, Korea, Japan, France, and other major economies galvanized industrialization and promoted durable economic growth through state intervention and investment in the economy. Even today, many European trading partners have tariffs on key goods, such as automobiles, that are significantly higher than U.S. tariffs on the same goods. This has not prevented these trading partners from expressing serious concerns, bordering on outrage, bodog online casino over certain provisions of Inflation Reduction Act that they claim to be protectionist—that is, favoring domestic goods and manufacturing over foreign imports. Specifically, the European Union alleged that eligibility requirements for nine tax benefits under the law violates international trade rules. The Korean government has also expressed frustrations with provisions of the law that it views as protectionist. Despite these concerns, the European Union has announced its own Green Deal Industrial Plan that includes more than 200 billion euros in subsidies and other industrial policy mechanisms such as procurement standards and funding for research and innovation.

Tension between the U.S. and its trade allies

Significant amounts of ink has been utilized discussing the ongoing tension between the United States and its trading allies, mainly over the industrial policies within the Inflation Reduction Act since its passage. It is true that the law is constructed to support domestic manufacturing; that was purposeful and important to its passage, as well as to the ongoing success of domestic efforts to take on the climate crisis. However, the breadth of these industrial policies is often mistakenly considered to be wide reaching across the whole legislation.

In fact, domestic content mandates (or restrictions) on subsidies only apply to one section, 30D: the electric vehicle tax credit—and those mandates are not even fully domestic. They state that to receive the full $7,500 credit: a) the electric vehicle must be assembled in North America, eventually including the battery, and b) the critical minerals within the battery must be sourced from the United States or a nation with which the country has an FTA.

The other provisions that support domestic manufacturing are either bonus credits, as is the case for equipment associated with producing renewable energy, or direct support to manufacturers that produce components for solar and wind energy, inverters, battery components, and critical minerals. These provisions do subsidize domestic industry, but they do not involve any further restrictions on consumer facing credits, outside of Section 30D.

The direct support for key industries, and notably the production of goods for those industries, is large and impactful on a global competitiveness scale. This was intentional and critical to winning support for the legislation, as well as for supporting American workers. These provisions helped the Biden administration live up to promises from back in the campaign and come from years of policy development and advocacy.

The Biden administration has exhibited some limited flexibility on some of the contested Inflation Reduction Act provisions, but the overall financial incentive structure of the law, which encourages building up domestic and North American supply chains and onshoring/friend-shoring, is not likely to change. Meanwhile, the European Union’s ambivalent attitude toward its own industrial policy suggests there remains substantial daylight between the two sides. The outlook of other major trading partners is even less clear.

There are significant questions looming over these frictions: Does trade policy need to be reconciled to industrial policy as a general matter? Is it sufficient to carve out certain areas of industrial policy from trade disputes, or should the rules be updated even if the outcome means some forms of industrial policy may still be disallowed? What would a carve-out look like? Would a “green subsidy race” be a bad thing? These questions are not academic, as the G-7 countries consider a “climate peace clause” at the upcoming summit in May. There are strong arguments for supporting a pivot to green industrial policy even if they clash with existing trade rules and institutions, but building global consensus around such a paradigm shift will be an uphill battle requiring sustained diplomatic effort with key U.S. partners and the support of key players in labor and implicated industries, such as renewable power generation.

What is the endgame with China?

It would not be an overstatement to say that concerns about China’s role in global supply chains and in cross-border commerce and investment are a primary, if not predominant, driver of most of U.S. trade policy. The GASSA’s goal of raising market barriers for steel and aluminum that is either produced in a carbon-intensive manner and/or originates from nonmarket economies engaged in unfair trade practices is first and foremost a response to China’s steel and aluminum industries, which have flooded the world with dirty, cheap exports. Likewise, IPEF seeks to deepen U.S. economic engagement in the Indo-Pacific as a counterweight to regional economic integration with China, which is being pursued under a number of bilateral and multilateral trade agreements—most notably the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and the CPTPP. Some observers have even characterized APEP as a response to deepening Chinese trade and investment ties in the Western Hemisphere, specifically through the Belt and Road Initiative, which includes 21 countries in the region. Finally, as the United States seeks to build new and more robust supply chains as an alternative to China’s current monopoly on critical materials necessary to achieve widescale adoption of renewable power generation, zero-emissions vehicles, and clean tech, it will need to deepen economic ties with exporter countries and coordinate with other major importers.

A key question hovering over these initiatives and imperatives is whether U.S. trade policy, and the version of international economic order the United States is pursuing, is seeking to change Chinese behavior or rather to insulate U.S. and partner markets from Chinese economic dominance that is viewed as harmful to U.S. national security, the well-being of U.S. workers, and domestic industrial decarbonization. It already seems clear that the United States is prepared to pursue a far more robust decoupling with China than U.S. partners in Europe or Asia, which continue to seek access to the Chinese market and appear to have apprehensions about the stringency of U.S. controls on the export of key technologies to Chinese firms announced in October. This divergence could create friction in how the United States and its partners seek to cooperate in strengthening supply chains, addressing carbon leakage, sourcing critical minerals, and onshoring manufacturing in key sectors, such as semiconductors. It may also give rise to accusations of double standards as the United States seeks deeper economic connections with countries whose manufacturing practices are similar to those of China.

Do we need a less efficient global trading system?

Perhaps the broadest uncertainty surrounding the future of the global economic order is the appropriate balance between efficiency in the movement of goods and capital and other priorities that may in some cases require a less efficient configuration of trade structures and supply chains. This question is, of course, broader than trade policy, but it implicates trade. As USTR Tai recently observed at the World Economic Forum in Davos, “We’re looking at a less efficient world,” one in which a “premium” will be paid for “trust” in economic ties as an “insurance policy” against unexpected disruptions and conflicts. Although most influential global actors now recognize the need for some measure of redundancy in supply chains and industrial policy to prevent a recurrence of the shortages and price fluctuations produced by COVID-19 and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the question of how—and how far—to move past the neoliberal paradigm will be a key arena of negotiation and contestation in the years to come.

The potential for misalignment is greatest in negotiations over the future of the WTO and other multilateral venues for setting international economic policy, such as the G-20. In December, the United States flatly rejected WTO panel reports regarding steel and aluminum tariffs imposed by the Trump administration and sustained by the Biden administration on the grounds that “issues of national security cannot be reviewed in WTO dispute settlement and the WTO has no authority to second-guess the ability of a WTO Member to respond to a wide-range of threats to its security.” Although this position reflects long-standing U.S. policy, the flat rejection of WTO jurisdiction, alongside the United States’ sustained policy of declining to appoint members to the WTO’s highest dispute resolution body, signals a different vision for management of trade relations than that held by even many of the United States’ closest geopolitical and economic partners. For example, the European Union, in its Green Deal Industrial Plan, states expressly that it will continue to support the WTO, including through reforming the institution, in order to “promote stability in international trade and strengthen legal certainty for investors and companies.” Regardless of the success of WTO reform proposals, the most likely scenario in the immediate and medium term is one in which shifts in norms and rules around trade percolate upward from ad hoc, bilateral, or minilateral trade arrangements and initiatives, rather than the kind of top-down, multilateral consensus that defined much of the post-Cold War period.

The result of this shift is that the United States and other advanced economies will have more flexibility to design a more equitable, climate-friendly, and worker-empowering global trade system—one that can coexist with similarly equitable and empowering domestic policies—but the fruits of that effort may be a more fragmented, less efficient international economic architecture. In this scenario, middle-income countries that have benefited from a climate-agnostic set of trade rules that privilege a narrow notion of efficiency—above all, China—may seek to undermine or circumvent the updated paradigm offered by the United States and those who share its vision. How to manage those tensions in a way that secures the prosperity, security, and resilience of the U.S. economy without tossing aside the worker-centric advancements in climate action will be the key challenge for U.S trade policy and U.S. foreign policy more broadly going forward.

What role for the Global South?

As the United States and other advanced economies move toward a more robust industrial policy aimed at jump-starting a green transition, securing supply chains of key commodities and goods, and onshoring well-paying jobs, countries of the Global South are right to ask whether they will be left further behind in the global development gap and deprived of the resources and knowledge to compete in a decarbonized future economy. This concern has already emerged in discussions over whether least developed countries will be excluded from carbon tariffs—there is no such exclusion in the EU CBAM—and whether the WTO should grant intellectual property (IP) waivers to facilitate pandemic response; a compromise agreement reached in June 2022 has been criticized by civil society groups and Global South governments as falling short of what is needed. This dilemma is likely to grow more acute as advanced economies and major exporting countries seek reliable sources of critical minerals, the majority of which are located in Global South countries, and as low- and middle-income countries seek technology transfers and other IP related to clean tech and renewable energy generation.

Going forward, the United States could generate global goodwill and set an important precedent by pairing its industrial policy with investment, foreign and technical assistance, and deepened trade ties with key partners in the Global South. This must include appropriate financial assistance, starting with what has already been committed—notably the Green Climate Fund and the Loss and Damage Fund established at the 27th U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP27). It would additionally be beneficial for the United States to coordinate with Europe and other advanced economies over sourcing of critical minerals from—perhaps aligning with the European Union’s proposed Critical Raw Minerals Club—and technology transfers to Global South countries. It could also entail reinvigorating existing trade arrangements, such as AGOA, to better reflect the needs and aspirations of low-income countries in attracting overseas investment and strengthening their energy insecurity, and possibly pursuing a new FTA with an emerging economy such as Kenya. On the level of diplomacy and economic relations, the United States would do well to explain how its industrial policy will unlock economic opportunity around the globe, and not just at home, as a piece by three senior Biden administration officials recently laid out.

Conclusion

Under President Biden, the United States has pursued innovative trade policies aimed at fostering cross-border commerce that strengthens U.S. national security, empowers workers, and supports climate action. To build on this momentum, U.S. policymakers will need to make tough decisions on key questions of global economic governance and U.S. economic relations with key partners.

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]]> bodog sportsbook review|Most Popular_capacity. The bill includes /blogs/ellard-technology-challenges-opportunities/ Wed, 15 Feb 2023 01:01:00 +0000 /?post_type=blogs&p=38168 Deputy Director-General Angela Ellard delivered on 14 February a spotlight talk at the German-American Trade and Tech Conference organized by Aspen Institute Germany. In her speech, DDG Ellard addressed recent...

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]]> Deputy Director-General Angela Ellard delivered on 14 February a spotlight talk at the German-American Trade and Tech Conference organized by Aspen Institute Germany. In her speech, DDG Ellard addressed recent trends in international trade, the role of technology and the WTO’s current work in this area. Her full speech is below.

Thank you for such a generous introduction, Stormy. And thanks to Aspen Institute Germany for inviting me to speak at this important conference. It is a pleasure to be with all of you today, albeit virtually.

Trade and technology are closely interlinked. From the invention of the earliest sailing ships, to steam engines, railways, and steamboats, to the advent of containerization, ever more sophisticated logistics, and the demand for climate friendly transportation, technology has always played a vital role in shaping the way we live and trade. This trend is accelerating like never before. We are living in an era of unprecedented technological change, experiencing and shaping innovations that could have a major impact on how we trade, who trades, and what is traded.

Technological developments can unlock new opportunities for businesses and individuals around the world. To realize this potential, we need to understand how to harness new technologies to make sure that they translate into job creation, economic growth, and helping to deliver Sustainable Development Goals in line with the WTO’s stated mission to improve living standards.

There is no doubt that the future of trade is inextricably linked to digital technologies. According to WTO estimates, global exports of digitally delivered services have more than tripled since 2005. Between 2005 and 2019, the average annual growth rate of digitally delivered services reached 7.3%. By contrast, other services exports grew only by 5.6%, and goods by 4.7%. During the pandemic, exports of digitally delivered services further increased by 14% year-on-year, and e-commerce sales soared.

The current framework regulating trade in services and technology at the WTO was put in place in 1995, generations ago in technology terms.  WTO Members are working to improve the existing tools and developing new ones to reflect the changing nature of trade. Let me elaborate on some of that work.

First, at our 12th Ministerial Conference last June, WTO Members agreed by consensus to extend the longstanding moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions until our next Ministerial Conference, in one year. This outcome was fundamental to preserving a trade policy environment that is supportive of e-commerce and is of tremendous importance for many businesses.

But because this moratorium is set to expire in a year, discussions will continue in the coming months to address the gap between developed and many developing countries on the one hand, and some developing countries on the other, who see the moratorium as detrimental to raising revenue and addressing the digital divide in ecommerce.

At MC12, Ministers also agreed to reinvigorate work under the work programme on electronic commerce, a longstanding effort aiming to address all trade-related issues relating to global e-commerce. This work includes development-related issues, such as digital divide in terms of digital infrastructure, connectivity, and capacity building.

Second, there is a lot of attention these days on the plurilateral joint initiative on e-commerce. Eighty-seven WTO Members, including many developing countries, participate in this initiative to develop baseline rules to govern the global digital economy. In particular, Members seek common disciplines to facilitate remote transactions and strengthen trust in digital markets while helping to tackle digital trade barriers. Members are aiming to conclude them by the end of the year.

It is significant that developed country Members participating in the initiative recognize the importance of inclusion and the barriers faced by developing and least developed countries seeking to benefit from the digital economy. In this regard, the ‘E-commerce Capacity Building Framework’ launched by Australia, Japan, Singapore, and Switzerland is a key step to strengthen digital inclusion and to help harness the opportunities of digital trade. The Framework will offer a wide range of technical assistance, training, and capacity building to support countries’ participation in the e-commerce negotiations.

In addition to these initiatives, discussions of technology-related issues take place in various specialized committees. For example, Members have been increasingly notifying the WTO’s Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade about their measures affecting digital trade, e-commerce, and cybersecurity. The level of interest to these topics is so high that the Committee will hold thematic sessions on current challenges and best practices in these areas.

Finally, there has been a push on behalf of some industry associations to further expand the coverage of the WTO Information Technology Agreement, which has 82 participants, representing about 97 per cent of world trade in IT products. During the pandemic, dozens of products covered under the ITA2, such as pulse oximeters, played a key role in saving lives. Furthermore, access to IT products and information bodog poker review and telecommunications infrastructure is paramount for small businesses’ engagement in e-commerce. Last year, we held an Information and Dialogue Session with IT industry representatives during our annual Public Forum, and our Members appreciated the first-hand information from industry representatives. I encourage those of you for whom this subject is important to participate in similar events in the future.

My next point is that access to technology is crucial to reducing the cost of climate change mitigation, speeding up the low-carbon transition, and creating green jobs, and the WTO has an important role to play in this regard.

Trade is often seen as a contributor to climate change through emissions caused by the production and transportation of goods. But this view is incomplete because international trade — and the WTO as the guardian of multilateral trade rules — can help achieve climate goals by enhancing adaptation and mitigation efforts.

To transition to a low-carbon economy, countries need affordable access to advanced technologies. And open trade plays a critical role in providing such access. Lowering barriers to trade in environmental goods and services would help facilitate transfer and deployment of climate change mitigation and adaptation technologies. Wind turbines, solar panels, heat pumps, and biogas stoves need to move across borders as freely as possible if we want to limit the global warming to 1.5 degrees.

The average tariff on environmental goods is already relatively low, particularly in developed economies. But some environmental goods are still subject to high tariffs in some countries, and non-tariff barriers are prevalent as well. Our analysis suggests that eliminating tariffs and reducing non-tariff measures on some energy-related environmental goods and environmentally preferable products could increase global exports in these products by US$ 109 billion (5%) and US$ 10.3 billion (14%), respectively, by 2030. This boost in the use of climate-friendly technologies could lead to a reduction of net carbon emissions by 0.6 %.

By the same token, installation and operation of clean technology is often complex and requires specific user skills that can be difficult to source domestically. So, removing barriers on environmental services, such as environmental consulting and engineering, can also help reduce costs of projects that lower emissions.

And such access is particularly important for developing countries. Think about it: 13% of the world’s population doesn’t have access to a stable electricity supply. Households that are off-grid now can benefit from access to electricity through solar power.  And the environment benefits because this energy is renewable.

Free movement of environmental goods and services will also result in economic diversification and job creation, particularly in services.  For example, the rooftop installation cost of photovoltaic modules accounts for approximately 60% of the total cost. A growing number of jobs, especially in Africa, are being created in off-grid decentralized renewables, which also boosts employment in other sectors such as agro‑processing, health care, communications, and local commerce.

With its broad membership, which includes countries with different political systems and levels of development, the WTO offers a unique forum for discussions on reduction of barriers to environmental goods and services.

The WTO can also help countries mobilize support and build trade-related capacities for adaptation. For example, the WTO surveys the evolving technology needs and priorities of least-developed countries and supports them by monitoring developed countries’ programmes for transferring relevant technologies to least-developed countries in line with their obligations under the WTO TRIPS Agreement. Climate change adaptation, including disaster prevention and water management, was an important element in 25% of the 152 environmental technology transfer programmes reported by developed members to the WTO between 2018 and 2020.

Furthermore, our Aid for Trade initiative – which is increasingly about investment for trade – can and should help developing and least-developed countries build climate-friendly critical trade infrastructure. In 2020, disbursements with a climate objective represented 31% of total Aid for Trade.

My last point is that technology is also at the heart of many trade tensions today. In 1989, the former U.S. Secretary of Defence Harold Brown wrote a paper on U.S. – Japan technological competition, which was aptly titled “High Tech is Foreign Policy”. This is again the case today. For many countries, technology is at the heart of foreign policy, national security, and geopolitical tensions.

Let me give just one example.  In the last couple of years, we have witnessed attempts to “onshore”, “nearshore”, or “friend-shore” supply chains for sensitive technology. As governments and business seek resiliency in supply chains, we can all certainly understand, to a degree, the trend to do business only with friends and neighbours given global uncertainties, even if it increases costs a little – or even a lot.  But the consequences of taking this too far will be counterproductive – less resilience, more vulnerabilities, and greater exposure to shocks. This is especially true given increasingly frequent and more intense natural and man-made disasters – such as extreme weather events and climate change, armed conflicts, and pandemics.

Not one single country or even a few countries can produce everything – or event most things – domestically. The key to supply chain resilience is therefore more international cooperation and more diverse supply chains.

Moreover, consider other unintended consequences of isolationism: our preliminary research at the WTO shows that decoupling of the global economy into two blocs would slash long-term global real GDP levels by about 5 percent.  And that is a conservative estimate, not taking into account the unquantifiable economic, social, and political consequences of having two systems of rules and standards regarding issues such as sustainability, labor, and the rule of law.

Now, more than ever, the pull toward globalization cannot, and should not, be ignored, despite pressures to become more isolationist and self-sufficient to a fault. The high cost of fragmentation shows that we need more strategic multilateralism and less unilateralism or tactical bilateralism. That’s the thought I would like to leave you with today.

Thank you for your attention.

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]]> bodog sportsbook review|Most Popular_capacity. The bill includes /blogs/chinas-top-export-market/ Wed, 07 Dec 2022 15:49:19 +0000 /?post_type=blogs&p=35394 China reported remarkably weak trade numbers for November, underscoring its lingering difficulties with the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as a slump in consumption of consumer goods in the U.S. Overall,...

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]]> China reported remarkably weak trade numbers for November, underscoring its lingering difficulties with the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as a slump in consumption of consumer goods in the U.S.

Overall, total Chinese exports in November fell 8.7% year-on-year to $296.1 billion, more than double the percentage drop that analysts had forecast. It was far worse than a 0.4% year-on-year drop in October, and the worst performance since February, 2020.

The decline was made up above all of a slump across a wide swath of manufactured consumer goods that Americans consume. Exports of high-tech products, for example, declined 23.6% to $74.8 billion. Exports of mobile phones were down 33.3% to $11 billion. Exports of toys declined 21.7% to $3.6 billion, and shipments of textiles fell 14.8% to $11.3 billion.

There was a notable exception. Exports of motor vehicles, a burgeoning industry in China, including the production of electric cars, surged 113.3% to $7.7 billion.

The bleak picture has been attributed in part to China’s strict Covid-19 controls, which has shut down businesses and confined millions of people to their homes.

But the bigger structural problem is that people in the U.S., traditionally China’s top market, have less money in their pockets after their stimulus payments have run out and less capacity to borrow as interest rates spike, and that’s affecting China. Exports to the European Union dropped 10.5% to $44.8 billion, while exports to the U.S. fell 25.4% to $40.8 billion, knocking the U.S. into second place behind the EU among China’s trade partners.

The weaker global economy is why China’s economy is now forecast to expand by only 3% in 2022, below the government’s aim of 5.5%. As banks in Washington and Frankfurt raise interest rates to tame inflation, the picture is expected to get worse before it gets better.

The economic picture is accentuating protectionist sentiment in Washington and beyond, and spooking corporations, including Apple, who are moving their supply chains closer to home, a trend known as “nearshoring” or “friendshoring”, rupturing ties with established manufacturers in China, and further deflating trade.

One exception continues to be ASEAN countries, where Chinese companies have been finding new, enthusiastic buyers for their products. Shipments to ASEAN countries rose 5.7% to $50.3 billion. Perhaps as a response, EU-U.S. trade has been increasing, according to trade statistics.

Beijing responded to the tepid exports by saying it would seek to stimulate domestic demand.

Total imports dropped 10.6% year-on-year in November to $226.3 billion. Imports dropped in almost every category. Inward shipments of motor vehicles, for example, fell 21.2% to $4.2 billion. There were only a few exceptions. Imports of vegetable oil rose 73.7% to $1.4 billion. Imports from the EU declined 16.2% to $22.9 billion, while shipments from the U.S. fell 7.1% to $16.5 billion.

It looks like a bleak picture, but China is such a massive economy that there are always some silver linings, niche areas of the global economy where it has an edge.

The reorientation of global energy markets has created opportunities for China’s petroleum sector. China has emerged as the key swing buyer, and processor and re-exporter, of Russian oil and gas coming on the market as traders prepare for a European embargo. Imports from Russia increased 26.8% to $10.5 billion.

China is importing more petroleum, and then processing and reexporting refined fuel at a profit, according to trade statistics. Imports of petroleum rose 11.8% year-on-year in November by quantity to 46.7 million tons. By value they increased 26.8% to $31.6 billion.

Meanwhile, China exports of petroleum products, mainly fuels, rose 46.6% by volume to 6.1 million tons. Because of price increases, by value they increased 98% to $5.4 billion. And Russia is becoming a better export market, too. Exports to Russia rose 18% to $7.7 billion.

On Monday, in a video conference, Premier Li Keqiang said the two nations would continue their cooperation.

John W. Miller is Trade Data Monitor’s Chief Economic Analyst, in charge of writing TDM Insights, a newsletter analyzing key issues through trade statistics. John is an award-winning journalist who’s reported from 45 countries for the Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, and NPR.

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]]> bodog sportsbook review|Most Popular_capacity. The bill includes /blogs/multilateral-trading-risk-wto/ Wed, 30 Nov 2022 19:22:31 +0000 /?post_type=blogs&p=35413 Blame COVID. Or China, or Russia, or globalization itself. Responsibility for the emerging trend of countries launching their own industrial policies must lie somewhere. Even if the forces contributing to...

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]]> Blame COVID. Or China, or Russia, or globalization itself. Responsibility for the emerging trend of countries launching their own industrial policies must lie somewhere. Even if the forces contributing to the spread of protectionist policies and increased government interventions in the market are hard to dissect, the implications for the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its elaborate system of agreements and rules are immense. These policies threaten the most fundamental rules and principles of the multilateral trading system, such as those requiring all members to treat one another equally and not favor local goods over foreign ones. If the foundations are crumbling, can the edifice still stand?

There are other threats to the multilateral trading system, which has been in place for the past seventy-five years. Regional trade agreements have challenged the non-discriminatory principles of the WTO for years now, and new anxieties about strategic competition with China have inspired measures among WTO members to decouple markets, moves that are seemingly at odds with the WTO’s goals of global economic integration. Add to the mix COVID-19 and Russia’s war in Ukraine, which have quickened the pace of these trends, and one might wonder whether the WTO stands any chance to remain relevant in coming years—or even survive.

For decades following World War II, a process of liberalizing markets, dismantling trade barriers, and extending non-discriminatory treatment globally was relentless and seemingly irreversible. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade led to the establishment of the WTO in 1995, which extended the rules and scope of the multilateral trading system to cover agriculture and textiles, intellectual property rights, trade in services, and more. Seismic geopolitical events, including the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 and China’s entry into the WTO in 2001, reinforced the global opening of markets. As Francis Fukuyama famously declared, it was the end of history, as global conflict, tyranny, and state control of markets would fade away. Unfortunately, we all know better now.

Insidious industrial policies

A recent speech by US Trade Representative Katherine Tai presents the industrial policy roadmap in clear relief. She suggested that domestic industrial policies must complement trade policies. Although she went on to reassure her audience that this approach does not mean the “global economy devolving into a kind of state of nature—where might makes right,” the implications are that common, shared global economic interests are no longer a central priority for the United States. US actions to buck WTO rules on subsidies, close off its government procurement market from foreign suppliers, and maintain high tariffs imposed by the Trump administration have led even close allies to suggest that they need to follow suit to defend their economic interests.

Some view industrial policies as an effective response to too much globalization. As Tai noted, the “need for correction is clear, and industrial policy is a part of that re-balancing effort.” However, this perspective may too casually cast aside questions about economic efficiency; the power of coddled industries to keep protections in place for years, even after their limited efficacy is demonstrated; and the reactions of ally and foe alike to put into place mirror-image measures. Even if one acknowledges a counterargument that national economic interests should prevail when other global players don’t play fair, the threat to the WTO is inescapable. When its rules, particularly the most fundamental ones, are ignored because they are deemed inconvenient, they lose their force in influencing national behavior, and the organization directly suffers in its ability to advance the global good.

Regional trade on steroids

Unlike many features of industrial policies, free trade agreements (FTAs) are specifically allowed under WTO rules. That does not mean they are fully compatible with WTO principles, especially most favored nation (MFN) treatment, which requires equal treatment for all WTO members. But the rules provide for limited exceptions for preferential tariffs under FTAs, so long as they cover “substantially all trade” between the parties. It also does not mean that FTAs pose no threat to the multilateral system. As more and more countries favor negotiation of FTAs and devote less time and fewer resources to WTO negotiations, the WTO’s stature diminishes further.

However, on the bright side, FTAs can serve as laboratories for testing new approaches to trade agreements, even in areas such as labor and the environment. Progress on fisheries subsidies in recent years in the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership and the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement inspired renewed efforts to conclude a fisheries agreement in the WTO at its 12th Ministerial Conference in June. Good regulatory practices—which encourage greater transparency, predictability, and accountability in national regulatory measures—have been pioneered in FTAs and could be taken up soon on a broader scale in the WTO. I know from my own negotiating experience in the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the WTO the tremendous impetus that FTAs can offer to rule-making in the WTO.

The most significant threat that FTAs might pose to the future credibility of the WTO is the inclination to negotiate half-baked “interim” agreements, such as the US-Japan trade agreement and Australia’s recent agreement with India, that fall far short of WTO requirements that they cover substantially all trade. The global trade landscape in recent decades has already shifted dramatically from a generally non-discriminatory one to a very preferential one in which many different levels of tariffs proliferate for the same products. This kind of approach could lead to the exception swallowing the rule in ways that fatally undermine MFN treatment—one of the WTO’s fundamental principles.

Decoupling as strategic policy

The United States and its allies, which view China as a strategic competitor that is bent on upending the existing global balance of power and related institutions, have compelling arguments for restricting commercial engagement, particularly if that engagement might feed a military buildup that threatens national security interests. However, the greater the decoupling, the greater the threat to the WTO.

After many years of hard negotiation, China joined the organization in 2001. At the time, most observers viewed accession as a critical step in China’s market-opening reform process, which would provide the economic underpinnings to a more integrated and safer world. I was then serving in Geneva, where negotiators expressed a collective relief that China’s economic behavior could be tamed by it being in the WTO. Instead, China effectively exploited gaps in WTO rules to advance its export-driven strategic interests in ways deemed unfair and dangerous to the economic and strategic interests of other countries.

At this point, it would be improbable to return to the economic landscape that existed before China’s accession. And a significant decoupling between China’s economy and those of other major WTO members would seriously strain the framework of WTO rules. While the WTO provides bodog sportsbook review wide latitude for a country to deviate from WTO rules based on its interpretation of its “essential security interests,” a full abandonment of a WTO relationship between the United States and China, for example, could test the WTO to its breaking point. Earlier precedents, such as Cuba and the United States or India and Pakistan, are hardly relevant to the circumstances of the United States or the European Union and China because of their sheer size and the extent of the connections between the economies.

Headwinds ahead

These multiple threats suggest that the future for the WTO is far from assured, even if a sudden collapse or departure of a critical player is unlikely. There are opportunities to turn the tide.

Policymakers who are concerned about the implications of widespread industrial policies in major economies should call these measures out. They are short-sighted, of limited effectiveness (particularly if others respond in kind), and contrary to important WTO obligations. If they persist, the WTO’s rule of law could collapse.

FTAs will, and should, continue. They can increase trade, enhance supply-chain resilience, and cement strong strategic relationships. However, it’s best to avoid the shortcuts of interim FTAs. If they are to support, rather than undercut, the multilateral trading system, they should be generally comprehensive and not just an easy alternative to hard work in the WTO.

Finally, economic decoupling between the first and second largest economies in the world would be globally destabilizing and likely cause the eventual end of the WTO. Some disengagement is inevitable, and necessary, if the United States or European Union, for example, need to take truly justifiable actions to protect essential security interests. But the system will not be able to survive for long if the two or three largest members are ignoring the rules with respect to each other.

Slow and steady offers long-term relevance

As Assistant US Trade Representative Andrea Durkin recently noted, the WTO can “reform by doing.” Although her comments focused on the possibility of small, negotiated trade agreements, such as those concluded at the 12th Ministerial Conference, the sentiment is relevant to countering these existential threats.

For example, it is critical that the WTO’s dispute-settlement system become fully operational again, so that industrial policies that run afoul of its rules are effectively contested. Only then might there be deterrence so that WTO members are more inclined to formulate subsidies and trade-restrictive measures that are consistent with WTO rules. This requires a resolution to the current Appellate Body crisis, in which the United States has blocked appointments to the Appellate Body because of concerns with its record of exceeding its mandate, thus preventing trade disputes from being meaningfully adjudicated in the WTO. The United States plays the most central role in finding a compromise, but others will have to do their part in preventing future Appellate Body overreach.

The WTO’s scrutiny of FTAs should be intensified, particularly to shed light on partial agreements that do not adhere to WTO requirements and potentially undermine the credibility of the organization. A healthy and complementary co-existence of FTAs and the WTO will benefit all.

Finally, the WTO should continue as a forum to discuss the implications of specific actions to decouple economies. The WTO must be more assertive in highlighting the dangerous implications to the organization and the system that has delivered economic growth for more than seven decades if major economies continue to disengage, resulting in less global trade.

For several years, there has been attention focused on the breakdown of the WTO’s negotiating function. However, if the WTO is to survive this moment and eventually thrive for the long term, its members will need to go even further to show that they value its role in curbing some of their worst instincts.

Mark Linscott is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center and the former assistant US trade representative for South and Central Asian affairs, and WTO and multilateral affairs.

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]]> bodog sportsbook review|Most Popular_capacity. The bill includes /blogs/ldc-adapting-to-climate-change/ Sat, 29 Oct 2022 20:32:03 +0000 /?post_type=blogs&p=35360 Climate change is one of the major threats to our societies, ecosystems and economies. Increasingly complex social and political challenges will arise as populations are forced to migrate from areas...

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]]> Climate change is one of the major threats to our societies, ecosystems and economies. Increasingly complex social and political challenges will arise as populations are forced to migrate from areas affected by climate change, such as through rising sea levels or droughts. A billion people who currently live no more than ten metres above sea level will be impacted. Human health is also expected to deteriorate since climate change affects the social and environmental determinants of health, such as clean air and water, and secure food and shelter. Vulnerable populations in developing countries, particularly least developed countries (LDCs) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS), will be the most severely hit. UNICEF reports that devastating floods have hit at least 27.7 million children in 27 countries around the world, with the number of children affected by flooding in Chad, Gambia, Pakistan and north-eastern Bangladesh being the largest in over 30 years.

Climate change also impacts trade. Extreme weather events can reduce productivity, increase costs and supply chain disruptions in the short term and alter countries’ comparative advantages and specialization in long term. The WTO World Trade Report 2022 finds that a rise of 1°C has been found to reduce the annual growth of developing countries’ exports by between 2.0 and 5.7 percentage points.

The list of 46 LDCs – home to about 1.1 billion people – is responsible for less than 1% of historical anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. While LDCs have the smallest environmental footprints, they are among the most vulnerable to climate change due to their greater exposure to sea-level rise, desertification, fires, floods and droughts. LDCs typically have lower levels of adaptive capacities to overcome such challenges. For most LDCs, climate change has already significantly impacted the lives of people and their long-term prospects of economic development.According to estimates by the World Bank, the effects of climate change will push up to 1.9% of the world population into extreme poverty – most of them concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Other estimates say that, over the last 50 years, 69% of worldwide deaths caused by climate-related disasters have occurred in LDCs.

Climate change is a multi-sectoral threat for LDCs that poses challenges to agriculture and tourism. Trade infrastructure – such as port facilities, roads, railways, airports and bridges ­– is dangerously at risk of damage from the consequences of climate change, including rising sea levels and the increased occurrence of extreme weather events. This threatens to further weaken LDCs’ ability to trade competitively. And it is not just the physical climatic disruptions that pose challenges to the most vulnerable countries: governments across the world are considering various mitigation strategies, policies and other measures to combat climate change. Yet, such measures, if not well designed, could additionally hinder LDCs’ trade competitiveness.

Responding to the growing climate crisis effectively and building resilience is – together with climate change mitigation – a critical sustainable development strategy. Trade coupled with efficient trade policies can support the sustainability and the resilience of supply chains and ensure climate adaptation and just transition in several ways.

Trade can support adaptation through economic growth
One of the biggest challenges for LDCs is the lack of finance that can be invested in their climate change strategies. Open trade raises per capita income, thereby boosting public demand for a cleaner environment and directing financial resources towards climate change adaptation. This growth can then boost investment in climate-resilient infrastructure. Economic growth can also help climate change mitigation efforts. A recent report from the World Bank says that investing an average of 1.4% of GDP annually could reduce emissions in developing countries by as much as 70% by 2050 and boost resilience.

Trade can help build economic resilience and facilitate the deployment of climate-friendly solutions
International trade can also help support climate change adaptation by facilitating access to the best, most efficient and environmentally effective solutions. For instance, trade in services such as weather forecasting, telecommunication and transportation can play a key role in preparing businesses and populations for climate shocks. Lowering tariffs and eliminating trade barriers to climate solutions such as stress-tolerant cultivars, early warning systems, irrigation technology and technical services will increase their affordability and dissemination. The use of harmonized and environmentally coherent standards will enable the development of and access to such goods and services needed for countries’ climate change adaptation strategies. The participation of LDCs in standards development should be facilitated, as they are usually the ones facing the most difficulties in complying with international standards due to a lack of infrastructure and human and financial capacity.

Trade can contribute to improving food security
Agriculture and the global food system will also be threatened by climate change in the years ahead with important implications for jobs and food security. New technologies can certainly help tackle the climate-related challenges that producers face. An analysis of household surveys in Ethiopia and Rwanda finds that the use of improved seeds, fertilizer and insecticide, protection against erosion, irrigation, and access to finance can mitigate crop damage. For example, farmers can make use of crop varieties that are more resistant to diverse climate conditions. Governments can help progress in this area by accelerating research and development in engineering improved seeds, which will help farmers boost productivity sustainably while building resilience.

Trade plays an essential role in determining the production, availability, price and quality of food. It can mitigate food insecurity induced by climate shocks by easing the movement of essential goods between surplus and deficit economies. At the same time, international trade helps create jobs and raise incomes, which strengthens households’ resilience and increases their ability to buy food.

Trade drives innovation and more environmentally sustainable production and consumption models
The new climate economy comes with opportunities such as the development of new production and consumption models that can reduce our carbon and environmental footprint. An example of this is the circular economy models: by improving resource efficiency and reducing waste, the circular economy can make a significant contribution to climate change mitigation and reduce the pressure on using new natural resources. At the same time, many parts of the circular economy value chain are powered by services that can represent opportunities for economic diversification for developing countries and LDCs. In addition, as countries transition to low carbon economies, they increasingly explore sustainable substitutes and alternatives to products, such as the use of natural fibres as a substitute for plastics, which can open new trade and economic opportunities for LDCs.

International trade cooperation and policy dialogue can support climate action
The WTO is a global forum for trade cooperation that can enhance the predictability of trade measures related to climate change. Through policy dialogue across its committees and bodies, the WTO can improve the collective understanding of how trade interacts with climate adaptation and mitigation strategies.

The three WTO environmental initiatives ­– the Trade and Environmental Sustainability Structured Discussions (TESSD), the Dialogue on Plastic Pollution and Environmentally Sustainable Plastic Trade (DDP) and the Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform (FFSR) – can further support policy dialogue and international cooperation. All three initiatives give a particular focus on the needs of developing countries, particularly LDCs, in the context of these pressing 21st-century environmental challenges. They exemplify the recognition that trade and the WTO have a role to play in addressing climate change. TESSD’s work this year has prioritized several issues including trade-related climate measures and environmental goods and services where efforts are supported by dedicated working groups.

The multilateral trading system promotes the use of international standards, good regulatory practices and international regulatory cooperation to enhance transparency and build trust among regulators regarding climate-related measures. Such cooperation facilitates trade and market access to emerging new green technologies and services.

Conclusion
LDCs need support to tackle the climate crisis to safeguard and further advance the hard-earned improvements in incomes, education and health achieved over the past decades. To successfully mitigate and adapt to climate change, LDCs have to address several challenges and strengthen their policy frameworks. Not only do they need to enhance the climate-resilience of their trade-related infrastructure but also to improve their digital connectivity. The latter will play a key role in addressing information asymmetries and broadening the reach of early warning systems.

International trade cooperation can help materialize just transition and prosperity for all by enhancing the mutual understanding of challenges and opportunities, limiting protectionist policies, and expanding trust to ensure that green technologies and services flow as smoothly and freely as possible. The WTO Aid for Trade Initiative has an important role to play by mobilizing funding for critical supply-side infrastructure for LDCs necessary for the transition to a low-carbon economy and supporting the private sector to adapt to climate change. Aid for Trade needs to be better targeted to address development concerns in line with LDCs’ nationally determined contributions (NDCs).

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]]> bodog sportsbook review|Most Popular_capacity. The bill includes /blogs/us-china-trade-shrinks/ Wed, 26 Oct 2022 14:28:48 +0000 /?post_type=blogs&p=34952 As the U.S. imposes new export controls on high-tech computer chips, the country’s trade with China is already starting to show deeper cuts from a years-long trade war. Chinese to...

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]]> As the U.S. imposes new export controls on high-tech computer chips, the country’s trade with China is already starting to show deeper cuts from a years-long trade war.

Chinese to the U.S. in September dropped 11.5% year-on-year to $50.7 billion, compared to a 3.8% decline in August, and shrinking the trade surplus 14% to $36.1 billion, according to figures released by Beijing this week.

Overall, Chinese exports increased 5.7% in September to $322.8 billion.

Since the first wave of tariffs on $350 billion of imports announced by President Trump in 2018, U.S. key electronics imports from China have fallen 62%, while imports from elsewhere increased 60%, according to a study published this month by the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

In September, Chinese imports of “electronic integrated circuits and microassemblies” from the U.S. declined 13.7% to $1.6 billion.

For China, the trade tensions with the U.S. are a key strategic consideration. The U.S is China’s top importer. As China debated its leadership transition, Beijing delayed the release of its monthly trade statistics, originally scheduled for Oct. 14, by over a week.

Xi Jinping was appointed Sunday to a third five-year term as leader of the Communist Party. He’s yet to summit with President Biden to talk about softening their stances in the ongoing trade war.

As trade with the U.S. slows, Chinese companies have been establishing tighter trade links with other counties in Asia.

China’s exports to countries that are part of the ASEAN alliance rose 29.5% to $52.3 billion in September, and imports increased 5.4% to around $38 billion. By comparison, shipments to the EU increased 5.6% to around $47 billion, and imports fell 8.2% to $23.8 billion. Exports to Vietnam increased 23% to $12.8 billion. And even some parts of Europe might become preferable markets. Exports to the Netherlands rose 18.4% to $10.3 billion. Xi Jinping has called for more self-reliance in technology to cope with U.S. controls, an upgraded military capability, and the protection of essential interests outside of China.

In general, the Chinese trading economy is stalled. Imports in September were roughly flat at $238 billion. Imports from Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, the U.S. and Australia all dropped.

One exception: Imports from Russia rose 53.9% to $10.7 billion. Over 70% of that was mineral fuel. In general, China has forged a tighter trade relationship with Moscow since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in the spring. Exports to Russia increased 21.3% to $8 billion. Chinese exports of cars to Russia rose 78.2% to $599.7 million. Shipments of machinery rose 24% to $1.8 billion, and electronics 31.8% to $1.5 billion.

Overall, Chinese trade with Russia in the first nine months of 2022 rose 32% to $136 billion.

The relationship with Russia has allowed Chinese buyers to acquire oil and gas at low prices. China has also begun transshipping more mineral fuels. Exports of fuels rose 133% to $7.8 billion. Overall, fuel imports by value rose 28.8% to $45 billion.

China’s economy is maturing and it is no longer just the factory floor for U.S. and European companies. But that maturity is revealing adaptability. For example, Chinese tobacco exports increased in September by over a thousand percent, rising to $756.8 million from $67.5 million.

There are signs that China is turning inward, and will soon have an economy of a scale large enough to sustain itself, some analysts believe.

One example: the robust growth of its automotive industry. Car and truck exports increased 36.9% in September to $14 billion. Vehicle imports, on the other hand, declined 14.1% to $6.6 billion.

John W. Miller is Trade Data Monitor’s Chief Economic Analyst, in charge of writing TDM Insights, a newsletter analyzing key issues through trade statistics. John is an award-winning journalist who’s reported from 45 countries for the Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, and NPR.

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]]> bodog sportsbook review|Most Popular_capacity. The bill includes /blogs/future-of-multilateralism/ Wed, 12 Oct 2022 20:56:31 +0000 /?post_type=blogs&p=34873 Remarks delivered at the Mt. Pelerin Society, Oslo, Norway The most important legacy from the 20th century bodog casino for international relations, next to the Allies winning the Second World War, was...

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]]> Remarks delivered at the Mt. Pelerin Society, Oslo, Norway

The most important legacy from the 20th century bodog casino for international relations, next to the Allies winning the Second World War, was the creation of the liberal international economic order. The postwar economic structure that the Allies put into place underwrote the ensuing peace. It provided a foundation and made room for the creation of the European Economic Community and the European Union, which has now become the largest trading Member of the World Trade Organization. The Allies set in motion the process of integration of most of the world’s nations into the global economy. It has been an engine for prosperity, lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty, particularly in Asia.

A central pillar of the order has been and remains the multilateral trading system. The system is nearing its Diamond Jubilee next year at age 75. There is, for the first time, a question of whether the nations of the world will squander their inheritance, whether the WTO can fulfill its promise, and whether the liberal international order will survive intact. It is true that there was recently a reprieve. The Trade Ministers of 164 economies came together in June and agreed to a series of decisions, most notably to begin to save the world’s fish stocks from unbridled subsidized fishing. But their items of agreement were largely a way station, marking works in progress. The outcomes consist largely of a number of promissory notes – matters that the Members said that they would resolve. These notes are going to be coming due very soon. In 1998, when the predecessor agreement to the WTO, the GATT (General Agreement on
Tariffs and Trade) reached its 50th anniversary, world leaders, including Presidents Nelson Mandela and Bill Clinton, Prime Minister Tony Blair, and EU Commission President Jacques Santer, gathered in Geneva to celebrate what had been accomplished in the creation and continuous improvement of the multilateral trading system, they expressed their hopes for the future of the newly established World Trade Organization (WTO). The Prime Minister of Norway, Kjell Magne Bondevik, in his remarks on that occasion, provided a sense of the history that had led to the creation of the WTO. This is what he said:

No one can tell what a different system – or indeed what an absence of multilateral trade rules – might have led to. Looking back, I believe it is fair to say that the provisions and principles of the GATT – and later of the WTO – have made a decisive contribution to the progress large parts of the world have witnessed during the latter part of this century. I am not speaking of economic growth alone, but just as much of the social achievements, employment and political stability which prosperity generates. These are fundamental values. The multilateral trading system of today thus constitutes an important part of a global framework that fosters stability and peaceful relations.

The Prime Minister also noted that there were challenges. He was concerned even then, a quarter of a century ago, about an adverse reaction to globalization, the “fear that our democratic institutions are losing control of the international economic forces and that environmental and social costs will be high”. He also was worried about the ability of the least developed countries to benefit from the trading system. He saw a need for the Members of the WTO to discuss how the qualitative aspects of trade – such as health, consumer protection, food safety, and the environment – could be brought more into focus. He said that labor standards should also be an issue for consideration by the WTO. His words stand before us today as a clear statement of much of the unfinished business of shaping the multilateral trading system. Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, speaking at the same event in 1998, said that he
believed that the WTO would need another 20-25 years to complete the rules of the trading system. Meeting here today, we now know for certain that there is no end date to the necessary evolution of the rules. The questions before us are: (1) whether the world’s trading nations will come together to cooperate to sustain the multilateral trading system, and (2) whether they will agree on improvements to the World Trade Organization (WTO) to meet current challenges. To answer these two questions, we need to consider two environments that will shape potential international trade cooperation: one is external to the WTO, the forces that undermine or aid the process of nations working together, and the other is internal, relating to whether change is needed in how the WTO is currently structured and operates, whether it is fit for purpose.

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]]> bodog sportsbook review|Most Popular_capacity. The bill includes /blogs/friend-shoring-rationale/ Wed, 24 Aug 2022 20:18:13 +0000 /?post_type=blogs&p=34493 Senior US policymakers are advocating friend-shoring—but they haven’t been consistent in the use of that term. Nor have they explained why private sector incentives to blunt supply chain disruption aren’t...

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]]> Senior US policymakers are advocating friend-shoring—but they haven’t been consistent in the use of that term. Nor have they explained why private sector incentives to blunt supply chain disruption aren’t strong enough.

In recent years, there have been calls for onshoring, reshoring, and near-shoring of supply chains. A year ago, the Biden Administration first mooted friend-shoring. Now US officials appear to be putting flesh on the bone.

At the Atlantic Council on 13 April 2022, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen observed “in the aftermath of the pandemic, that our supply chains, while having become very efficient and excellent at reducing business costs, have not been resilient.” Yellen contended that friend-shoring was part of the solution. On this occasion friend-shoring was built on trusted trading partners: “that we have a group of partners… [with whom] we’re not worried about geopolitical issues. We know that we can count on them, rather than take a purely domestic approach. I think we get the benefits of continued efficiencies in production by having a group of partners who work to shore up supply chains and make them more resilient.”

More recently in July 2022, in a speech made at LG’s Science Park in Seoul, Ms Yellen emphasised that friend-shoring is not about retreat from global supply chains: “Working with allies and partners through ‘friend-shoring’ is an important element of strengthening economic resilience while sustaining the dynamism and productivity growth that comes with economic integration. Friend-shoring is about deepening relationships and diversifying our supply chains with a greater number of trusted trading partners to lower risks for our economy and theirs.”

Other US officials frame the matter differently— putting more emphasis on encouraging domestic production, which could substitute for imports. For example, in recent statements US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo promoted friend-shoring explaining that, as far supply chains are concerned, the US is “taking a dual approach, investing in domestic manufacturing, as well as pursuing ‘friendshoring’ like-minded partners fully integrated into our supply chains.” At the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos in May 2022 Secretary Raimondo framed the matter differently noting “we can’t make everything in America”, and concluded that if “it can’t be in America—because of labour prices and the like— it ought to be on our allied shores.” So it seems encouraging factories to move out of geopolitical rivals is part of the agenda too.

A careful review of statements made by senior Biden Administration officials on friend-shoring reveal little, if anything, about the tangible steps they plan on taking to advance this policy goal. As the second paper in this series shows, most of the steps devised to date have come from Congress.

What are America’s trading partners to make of friend-shoring? Is the Biden Administration at one on the ends and means of friend-shoring? Is it old wine in new bottles? And, what is the problem friend-shoring in really trying to solve? Each question is briefly addressed in turn.

Are the proponents of friend-shoring aligned?

It is no secret that internationalist wing of the Biden Administration is at odds with the wing that wants to promote import substitution and further condition access to the U.S. market. The semipublic debate between U.S. officials over the merits of reducing import tariffs on Chinese imports revealed that.

Find further timely analyses on globaltradealert.org/reports 2 of 2 Those fissures are apparent in statements over friend-shoring, in particular as they relate to the boundaries of this new policy. Divisions over the implications of national security for friend-shoring can be expected. In respect of supply chains, Secretary Yellen has said it is “increasingly difficult to separate economic issues from broader considerations of national interest, including national security”.

Similarly, Secretary Raimondo said, “Some things are more important than price. You can’t put a price on America’s national security”. However, it seems that in certain instances full repatriation of production to the United States—not friend-shoring—is the goal. For “critical” goods, such semiconductor chips, Secretary Raimondo said: “It is a huge national security issue and we need to move to making chips in America, not friend-shoring.” How different are these comments to those of Dr. Peter Navarro, a senior White House official in the Trump Administration?

Is friend-shoring new?

Friend-shoring has antecedents in U.S. trade policy. Favouring allies with free trade agreements was a key part of the “Competitive Liberalization” strategy of the Administration of President George W. Bush. For sure, the goal was opening markets abroad to U.S. companies. But like friend-shoring argument, there was considerable emphasis on the track record foreign and security policy cooperation with selected foreign governments. Seasoned trade hands will recall that Australia was bestowed a FTA but New Zealand was not.

But the accusation of “old wine in new bottles” can only be taken so far. A crucial difference between the Bush and Biden Administrations is that the former was open to not only negotiating binding free trade agreements but to fighting for the Congressional approval of the resulting accords. Another difference: the form of discrimination in regional trade agreements is explicit—in the case of friendshoring we are still to learn what carrots and sticks the Biden Administration will use to induce factories to move.

Why hasn’t friend-shoring happened already?

Advocates of friend-shoring have not explained what market failure they want to fix with friendshoring policies. Recently, one of America’s leading international trade economists forcefully made this point. Professor Gene Grossman of Princeton University observed: “Supply-chain disruptions have become the new normal since the pandemic began. Many politicians and commentators blame globalization and believe that governments should be taking actions to encourage firms to diversify their supply sources and to bring sourcing closer to home. But firms have their own incentives to avoid disruptions, so it’s not obvious that their investments in resilience will be sub-optimal without government policy intervention.”

In a recent paper with two co-authors, Grossman notes “Little is known about optimal policy in the face of insecure supply chains.” Their analysis makes two important points. First, that the optimal public policy for supply chains depends on factors that governments are very unlikely to observe. If governments can’t observe what to condition policy on, then how can they be sure that their friendshoring policies won’t do more harm than good? And, second, that the private sector can over-invest in resilience. Policy based on assumptions that under-investment is the norm is flawed.

In short, the proponents of friend-shoring—some of whom are leading economists in their own right—haven’t played by the rules of the game when advocating public policy. They haven’t stated what steps the state should take and they haven’t explained what market failures those actions will fix. For those hoping for a return to rational, evidence-based U.S. trade policymaking, to date friend-shoring pronouncements by the Biden Administration have been a disappointment.

Halit Harput is Senior Trade Policy Analyst at the St.Gallen Endowment for Prosperity through Trade. For the Global Trade Alert initiative he reports on trade-related policy changes by several nations, including the United States. Previously, Halit served as an official in the Turkish Ministry of Trade. He thanks Simon J. Evenett and Johannes Fritz for their comments and guidance on earlier drafts of this note.

Please send comments or suggestions to halit.harput@sgept.org. This is the first of three assessments.

To read the original briefing, please click here. 

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