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The new case for more, not less, trade
There are good reasons to believe it is likely to follow the rewiring of global finance earlier this century.
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Obituaries for globalisation are premature.
PHOTO: AFP
Andy Haldane
The recent ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization ended in ignominy with no agreement reached on e-commerce tariffs and a failure to discuss much-needed reform of the WTO itself. This was a fitting end to a disastrous decade for world trade.
That decade began with Brexit and the tariffs of US President Donald Trump’s first term. World trade was then rocked by the acute supply chain disruptions of Covid-19 and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It will end with US tariffs at their highest levels since World War II and significant supply chain dislocation in the Middle East.
