Anne Krueger explains why the Trump administration's current tariff tactics undermine the multilateral global trade system.

Fiona Sydney

2018-09-21 09:41:00 Fri ET

Former World Bank and IMF chief advisor Anne Krueger explains why the Trump administration's current tariff tactics undermine the multilateral global trade system. In the post-war era, America has led the way in establishing the troika of economic institutions, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and World Trade Organization (WTO) (formerly known as General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)), that collectively form the primary basis of international economic order in place today. Due to the healthy expansion of a multilateral trade system under the WTO, world trade has grown 1.5 times faster than global GDP since World War II.

The WTO 164-member economies commit to supporting an open multilateral trade system with common rules and procedures. These rules achieve for international trade what domestic commercial codes accomplish for contracts and transactions between parties within a given jurisdiction. Under WTO rules, international trade partners are subject to the same national regulations just as domestic firms have the same rights in regional courts. Governments cannot discriminate against other WTO members, so trade benefits for one trade partner must apply to all other trade partners under WTO rules.

It is essential and paramount to ensure that trade partners receive fair regulatory and judicial treatment from WTO member-state governments, and the principle of non-discrimination has been a core tenet of the global trade system.

Under this WTO framework, the Trump administration now uses national-security concerns to justify hefty tariffs on steel-and-aluminum imports from China, Canada, Europe, Mexico, and Japan etc. Whether these tariffs would help reduce U.S. trade deficits remains complex and mysterious.

The Trump discriminatory tariffs undermine the WTO economic order and thereby induce China and some other countries to seek commensurate reparation through the WTO dispute-settlement mechanism.

These countries may retaliate against Trump tariffs and in turn would exacerbate the current global trade quagmire.

 


If any of our AYA Analytica financial health memos (FHM), blog posts, ebooks, newsletters, and notifications etc, or any other form of online content curation, involves potential copyright concerns, please feel free to contact us at service@ayafintech.network so that we can remove relevant content in response to any such request within a reasonable time frame.

Blog+More

America and China cannot decouple decades of long-term collaboration in trade, finance, and technology.

Becky Berkman

2019-12-16 11:37:00 Monday ET

America and China cannot decouple decades of long-term collaboration in trade, finance, and technology.

America and China cannot decouple decades of long-term collaboration in trade, finance, and technology. In recent times, some economists claim that China ma

+See More

American state attorneys general begin bipartisan antitrust investigations into Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google.

Charlene Vos

2019-10-21 10:35:00 Monday ET

American state attorneys general begin bipartisan antitrust investigations into Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google.

American state attorneys general begin bipartisan antitrust investigations into the market power and corporate behavior of central tech titans such as Apple

+See More

Better corporate governance through worldwide convergence toward Berle-Means stock ownership dispersion

Fiona Sydney

2023-12-05 09:25:00 Tuesday ET

Better corporate governance through worldwide convergence toward Berle-Means stock ownership dispersion

Better corporate ownership governance through worldwide convergence toward Berle-Means stock ownership dispersion   Abstract We design a model

+See More

New York Fed CEO John Williams listens to sharp share price declines as part of the data-dependent interest rate policy.

Dan Rochefort

2019-01-02 06:28:00 Wednesday ET

New York Fed CEO John Williams listens to sharp share price declines as part of the data-dependent interest rate policy.

New York Fed CEO John Williams listens to sharp share price declines as part of the data-dependent interest rate policy. The Federal Reserve can respond to

+See More

Fed minutes reflect gradual interest rate normalization in response to high inflation risk.

Dan Rochefort

2018-02-15 07:43:00 Thursday ET

Fed minutes reflect gradual interest rate normalization in response to high inflation risk.

Fed minutes reflect gradual interest rate normalization in response to high inflation risk. FOMC members revise up the economic projections made at the Dece

+See More

Addendum on USPTO fintech patent protection and accreditation

Andy Yeh Alpha

2023-01-11 09:26:00 Wednesday ET

Addendum on USPTO fintech patent protection and accreditation

Addendum on USPTO fintech patent protection and accreditation As of early-January 2023, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has approved our U.S

+See More