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Dear
Members and Friends
This
week we bring you a thoughtful
piece, and an invitation to an
event on the future of trade, by
your fellow member Hinrich
Foundation Limited.
Yours faithfully
Victor Mills
Chief Executive
Global macro and trade shocks
over the past 15 years have
upended the post-World War II
framework for international
economic cooperation. They have
also set in motion a widespread
reassessment of how trade should
be conducted, largely as
domestic policy in many
countries scrambled to keep pace
with the changes. Factors such
as the global financial crisis
of 2008-2009 and the Trump
administration’s heavy-handed
application of tariffs spurred
geoeconomic fragmentation. The
Biden administration has
retained most of those tariffs.
Other upending factors include
the Covid pandemic, inflationary
pressures, and the war in
Ukraine. All have skewed global
trade and investment policies in
new ways. Protectionism has
become the hallmark of trade
policy worldwide. The invocation
of national security as a
justification to restrict trade,
once considered exceptional in
trade policy, has now become a
norm.
In recent years,
some policymakers have taken a
step further by restricting
exports and controlling outbound
investment. It is also a concern
when politicians and the general
public in many countries are
becoming increasingly
desensitized to the dangers of
closing markets. The economic
ramifications are clearly
negative and the slide into a
less productive system appears
inevitable. At a time when the
logic for collective action on
climate change, poverty
reduction and preparing for
future pandemics has never been
more acute, the folly of
fragmentation is, instead, in
ascendancy.
To unpack the
ramifications of trade
fragmentation on the global
trade system, you are invited to
attend a trade talk on 29 August
2023 with Keith Rockwell,
former director and spokesperson
for the World Trade Organization
and Senior Research Fellow at
the Hinrich Foundation.
Click here for more
information and to register.
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