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

Federal Reserve confirms that all of the 34 major banks pass their annual CCAR macro stress tests.

Apple Boston

2017-05-31 06:36:00 Wednesday ET

Federal Reserve confirms that all of the 34 major banks pass their annual CCAR macro stress tests.

The Federal Reserve rubber-stamps the positive conclusion that all of the 34 major banks pass their annual CCAR macro stress tests for the first time since

+See More

Several recent events explain why Trump may undermine multilateral world order.

Joseph Corr

2018-06-03 07:35:00 Sunday ET

Several recent events explain why Trump may undermine multilateral world order.

Several recent events explain why Trump may undermine multilateral world order. First, Trump withdraws the U.S. from the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership

+See More

President Trump hails and touts America's new high real GDP economic growth in mid-2018.

Daisy Harvey

2018-07-25 11:41:00 Wednesday ET

President Trump hails and touts America's new high real GDP economic growth in mid-2018.

President Trump hails and touts America's new high real GDP economic growth in 2018Q2. The U.S. is now a $20+ trillion economy, and America hits this mi

+See More

We assess the global fiscal deficits and sovereign debt burdens in America, Europe, and many other countries worldwide.

James Campbell

2027-01-31 12:25:00 Sunday ET

We assess the global fiscal deficits and sovereign debt burdens in America, Europe, and many other countries worldwide.

In recent decades, many governments have chosen to run high fiscal deficits on top of sovereign debt mountains so that greater government intervention still

+See More

Apple shakes up senior leadership to initiate a new transition from iPhone revenue reliance to media and software services.

John Fourier

2019-02-21 12:37:00 Thursday ET

Apple shakes up senior leadership to initiate a new transition from iPhone revenue reliance to media and software services.

Apple shakes up senior leadership to initiate a new transition from iPhone revenue reliance to media and software services. These changes include the key pr

+See More

Kobe Bryant and several other star athletes have been smart savvy investors.

Charlene Vos

2019-08-08 09:35:00 Thursday ET

Kobe Bryant and several other star athletes have been smart savvy investors.

Kobe Bryant and several other star athletes have been smart savvy investors. In collaboration with former Web.com CEO Jeff Stibel, the NBA champion invests

+See More