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.
2018-10-03 11:37:00 Wednesday ET
Fed Chair Jerome Powell sees a remarkably positive outlook for the U.S. economy right after the recent interest rate hike as of September 2018. He humbly su
2019-04-25 09:35:00 Thursday ET
Bridgewater hedge fund founder Ray Dalio suggests that the current state of U.S. capitalism poses an existential threat for many Americans. Dalio deems the
2018-07-07 10:33:00 Saturday ET
The east-west tech rivalry intensifies between BATs (Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent) and FAANGs (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google). These Sino-U.S.
2024-10-31 09:26:00 Thursday ET
Generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) uses large language models (LLM) and content generation tools to enhance human lives with better productivity.
2018-07-01 08:34:00 Sunday ET
Are China and Russia etc gonna dethrone the petrodollar? Over the years, China, Russia, France, Germany, and Japan have made numerous attempts to use their
2017-07-25 10:44:00 Tuesday ET
NerdWallet's new simulation suggests that a 25-year-old millennial who earns an inflation-free base salary of $40,456 and saves 15% each year faces a 99