Posts tagged…G20
Will the G-20 save Doha?
Sun, Sep 27 2009Probably not. The discount on this, the lastest of their promises, is deservedly steep according to the Global Trade Alert website.
It's not a problem of mendacity or lack of 'political courage'. There is simply no consensus on the liberalizing mandate of Doha among this group; we've tested that proposition to exhaustion in the past eight years. The G20 is effectively the same group that has been…
Read more…Global Trade Alert
Fri, Jul 03 2009
Just before the London G-20 Meeting in April, Andy Stoler and I wrote a paper for a booklet published by the Center for Economic Policy Research in which we suggested that the best way to make G-20 governments live up to their promises was to expose their misdeeds on trade policy—including those that nominally complied with their WTO obligation—using a public website.
Specifically, we recommended…
U.S. breaks G-20 promise on trade
Sun, May 24 2009
Just to remind you of what they said in April:
"We reaffirm the commitment made in Washington not to raise new barriers to investment or to trade in goods and services, including within existing WTO limits, not to impose new trade restrictions, and not to create new subsidies to exports." G-20 Communiqué emphasis added
By any measure the re-introduction of an export subsidy for the coddled U.S.…
Quibble over ‘slippage’ on protection
Tue, Apr 28 2009Meanwhile in Geneva… the WTO delegations have been debating whether the Secretariat's second report on protectionist measures (issued a month ago) showed 'significant slippage' in Member governments' commitment to hold the line, or not.
The U.S. ambassador disagreed with the proposition that Member governments had begun to default on their promises.
“We understand the danger of an incremental…
G20 communiqué an improvement
Fri, Apr 03 2009If you read the undertakings on trade and protectionism—with only a moderately skeptical eye—as a firm undertaking, it is not as "wooly" as the critics claim. On the contrary, it is a substantial improvement on other recent efforts and streets ahead of the wobbly paragraph 13 of their November 2008 communiqué.
The underlined phrases (my emphasis) are the significant parts. They make the…
China’s monetary policies
Wed, Apr 01 2009
The People's Bank has an english language site that is becoming essential reading.
The papers and speeches by the Governor, Zhou Xiaochuan, such as this paper on international monetary reform are significant documents. Well-argued, straight-forward, with little of the bluster that has occasionally spoiled China's official account of itself (and is not unknown to our own Dear Leader).
…Empty words won’t limit the ‘wriggle room’
Tue, Mar 24 2009Democracy ensures we get the governments we deserve.
Gideon Rachman seems to think we deserve only to be consoled for the political dilemma of G20 leaders rather than offered real solutions to the frailties of the global trade framework. He agrees the problem is the threat of 'wiggle room' protection:
"[I]f the world’s political leaders start deliberately increasing barriers to trade, they will…
Can the G20 get Doha done?
Fri, Mar 20 2009
The EC Commissioner for Trade, Catherine Ashton, gave a talk in the past couple of days to the Carnegie Endowment in Washington in which she urged, among other things, a G20 commitment to the quick resumption and completion of the Doha WTO negotiations.
"To truly deliver on our G20 commitment, we need to turn the rhetoric into reality and complete the Doha Round of world trade talks. This…
An empty G20 communique
Mon, Mar 16 2009Writer Chris Giles in the Financial Times explains the five tests of 'relevance and importance' for Ministerial Communiqués. On his reckoning (I agree) the G20 Finance Ministers failed all of them.
"[T]he final statement crafted by the ministers was an attempt to suggest a comprehensive action plan was working. It lacked credibility and that will not help. Worse, the lack of substance threatens to…
Would web surveillance of protection work?
Tue, Mar 10 2009
In our paper for the Evenett and Baldwin book on 'murky protectionism', Andrew Stoler and I outline a surveillance mechanism for the G20 that we think will dissuade governments from making regulations that would harm world trade (further, see the graph at left.)
The mechanism we propose has not been used previously to expose protectionism but it is certainly in use in other contexts to bring…
Can the G20 halt ‘murky’ protectionism?
Sun, Mar 08 2009
What should the G20 do, when they meet in London next month, to put an end to the growing use of what I've been calling 'wiggle-room' protection? Is 'murky' protectionism causing the coming collapse in trade volumes? Or will protectionism rise as a result? Supposing that they wanted to, could the G20 really crack-down on actions that close markets or discriminate against imports but are not…
Slip-sliding summitry
Mon, Mar 02 2009If regional summits over the past day or so are any guide, the prospects of an effective commitment from the G20, next month, prohibiting protection are weak. At the ASEAN summit in Thailand this week:
"…Asean leaders made a stand against protectionism, [but] defended their own buy-local campaigns, saying those conform with trade rules, and are similar to the ”Buy American” clause in the $787bn…