2018-09-21 09:41:00 Fri ET
technology antitrust competition bilateral trade free trade fair trade trade agreement trade surplus trade deficit multilateralism neoliberalism world trade organization regulation public utility current account compliance
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.
2019-01-17 10:41:00 Thursday ET
Sino-American trade talks make positive progress over 3 consecutive days as S&P 500 and global stock market indices post 3-day win streaks. Asian and Eu
2017-07-07 10:33:00 Friday ET
Warren Buffett invests in American stocks across numerous industries such as energy, air transport, finance, technology, retail provision, and so forth.
2017-06-03 05:35:00 Saturday ET
Fundamental value investors, who intend to manage their stock portfolios like Warren Buffett and Peter Lynch, now find it more difficult to ferret out indiv
2018-07-05 13:40:00 Thursday ET
U.S. trading partners such as the European Union, Canada, China, Japan, Mexico, and Russia voice their concern at the World Trade Organization (WTO) in ligh
2018-11-01 08:36:00 Thursday ET
Ford and Baidu team up to test autonomous cars in China. For the next few years, Ford and Baidu plan to collaborate on the car design and user acceptance te
2018-08-27 09:35:00 Monday ET
President Trump and his Republican senators and supporters praise the recent economic revival of most American counties. The Economist highlights a trifecta