Global Trade Governance

Concerns have been expressed about the impact of free trade on many developing countries and whether such countries really stand to benefit from the current regimes for the global governance of trade. This is particularly exemplified by the challenges African nations confront in gaining export access for their products in the global North and the inability of the WTO Doha Development Round to resolve the matter effectively. Africa remains the world's poorest continent. In addressing challenges confronting Africa in the global governance of trade, we examine the existing framework for trade liberalisation in the continent against the backdrop of the regional trade arrangements and the recent efforts towards the formation of an African Continental Free Trade Area. The paper discusses some of the challenges of Africa in the WTO system especially in relation to the ability to compete favourably in global markets and how the continent may pursue trade

The current China-US trade war that started in early 2018 has been the largest of this kind in the global market in the past half century, if not longer. Many speculations about the reasons for and progress and potential implications of the trade war emerge. Countries must understand the reasons for the war to avoid future trade wars. Predicting what will happen in the near future and the related economic consequences are even more important for people (including businessmen and government policymakers) to prepare for them and make corresponding decisions. However, endeavouring to predict is a tough job. This paper tries to provide an unbiased analysis through the lens of the trade literature. That is, we want to ask how much we can understand the current trade war on the basis of the accumulated knowledge we can obtain from our profession. Related theories include imperfect competition, increasing returns, terms of trade argument, distributional effects and political economy argument.

Following decades of relative isolation, China and India have become the world's largest new traders. In this paper, we focus on their Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs). While the two economies initially followed similar paths, with a growing number of PTAs signed in the first decade of the 21st Century, since 2011 India has taken a U-turn and stopped completing them. China, on the other hand, has widened and deepened its trade agreements. We present a novel theoretical framework to analyze international economic negotiations by emerging economies and use it to study the puzzling divergence of the trade policies of China and India. By adapting the two-level game framework to emerging economies, we argue that there are key differences in the political economies of countries like China and India (compared to Western industrialized ones), which requires a more specific focus on the domestic side of the two-level game. We show that accounting for non-legislative domestic ratification processes and for iterative games and experiential learning by domestic actors are crucial in understanding the trade strategies of emerging economies. While much of the literature explains large emerging economies by looking at external systemic factors, we instead suggest that their domestic politics trumps international politics.

Concerns have been expressed about the impact of free trade on many developing countries and whether such countries really stand to benefit from the current regimes for the global governance of trade. This is particularly exemplified by the challenges African nations confront in gaining export access for their products in the global North and the inability of the WTO Doha Development Round to resolve the matter effectively. Africa remains the world's poorest continent. In addressing challenges confronting Africa in the global governance of trade, we examine the existing framework for trade liberalisation in the continent against the backdrop of the regional trade arrangements and the recent efforts towards the formation of an African Continental Free Trade Area. The paper discusses some of the challenges of Africa in the WTO system especially in relation to the ability to compete favourably in global markets and how the continent may pursue trade

Concerns have been expressed about the impact of free trade on many developing countries and whether such countries really stand to benefit from the current regimes for the global governance of trade. This is particularly exemplified by the challenges African nations confront in gaining export access for their products in the global North and the inability of the WTO Doha Development Round to resolve the matter effectively. Africa remains the world's poorest continent. In addressing challenges confronting Africa in the global governance of trade, we examine the existing framework for trade liberalisation in the continent against the backdrop of the regional trade arrangements and the recent efforts towards the formation of an African Continental Free Trade Area. The paper discusses some of the challenges of Africa in the WTO system especially in relation to the ability to compete favourably in global markets and how the continent may pursue trade

Concerns have been expressed about the impact of free trade on many developing countries and whether such countries really stand to benefit from the current regimes for the global governance of trade. This is particularly exemplified by the challenges African nations confront in gaining export access for their products in the global North and the inability of the WTO Doha Development Round to resolve the matter effectively. Africa remains the world's poorest continent. In addressing challenges confronting Africa in the global governance of trade, we examine the existing framework for trade liberalisation in the continent against the backdrop of the regional trade arrangements and the recent efforts towards the formation of an African Continental Free Trade Area. The paper discusses some of the challenges of Africa in the WTO system especially in relation to the ability to compete favourably in global markets and how the continent may pursue trade

The World Trade Organization’s (WTO) forthcoming Ninth Ministerial Conference in Bali comes at a critical juncture for the multilateral trade body, long mired in the Doha Round stalemate. Beyond offering a critical first test at consensus-building and institutional renewal, the Bali Ministerial affords a unique opportunity to gauge contrasting perceptions across ASEAN and East Asian countries of the continued relevance of the WTO to trade and economic governance within the region and beyond. Resulting from the collaborative efforts of the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA), the Universitas Pelita Harapan (UPH) and the World Trade Institute at the University of Bern (WTI), this policy research initiative offers comparative scholarship on some of the key questions arising from the forthcoming WTO Ministerial gathering from an East Asian perspective. Specifically, it explores what scholars in the region expect the Bali Ministerial to produce by way of tangible o...

The global economic crisis triggered changes in real economies and trade in all countries, including those in Asia, which adopted the so-called export-led growth model. With these drastic changes in trade flows, and the need to counteract potential adverse effects, the old debate on the advantages and flaws of the export-led model has re-opened. It aims to provide some theoretical and empirical reasons towards an argument that for developing Asian economies, export-led growth is still a valid model of stable, equitable and sustainable growth. It also combines local research with that of established ones. While there is extensive literature focusing on the role of openness and trade in a country's development, much of it dates to before the most recent global crisis. Volumes that were recently published argue against an export-led growth strategy, while this volume argues in defence of trade-led growth for the Asian region.

Despite being criticized for its inconsistencies, China's mercantilism is considered a commonplace in the literature focused on Chinese economic development. This paper intends to criticize the foundations of China's 'monetary' and 'financial' mercantilism arguing that both provide only a feeble explanation of its economic success. In particular, rather than echoing the practices of classical mercantilism, such supposed 'mercantilist' approach, on the contrary. Reflects the Gerschenkronian model of development, according to which the growth of the 'backward' countries is based massively on banks and State support.

The paper “Government as a key duty bearer in transition reforms from socialism to capitalism – the case of Albania”, addresses the way in which the government should exercise its power to ensure that citizens have equal access to social welfare services, enjoying their rights. Albania, like other Central and Eastern European countries experienced the past socialist system, which failed. The failure of the socialist system was the failure of the state: in political, economic and social terms. As far as economic policies are concerned, all data demonstrate the collapse of socialism, because the system was based on inefficiency, which eroded growth. Regardless of the principles of communist regimes adopted in former communist countries’ Constitutions, the past system brought neither equity nor justice, and therefore instead of “social cohesion”, the contradictions among social groups and categories, deepened. After the failure of socialism, Albania embarked on the new path aimed at es...

The impact of the U.S-China trade conflict extends beyond both nations' economies to the economies of trade allies and non-trading partners caught in the web of the trade impasse. This paper conducts a sectoral analysis of the trade conflict on the U.S economy using the manufacturing, agriculture, and technology sectors as metrics. We explore data from the databases of the U.S Census Bureau and the U.S Bureau of Economic Analysis from 2001 to 2019. The trade conflict has led to a significant reduction in trades between both nations. The 25% counter tariff imposed by China reduced U.S exports by $30 billion between 2018 and 2019. Primary income receipts declined 10%, and secondary income receipts declined further in the negative territory. China's counter-tariffs increased component costs for the U.S automobile industry, leading to a reduction in the number of new and used vehicles sold during the period. We identify an incentive-driven trade policy framework against the current punitive stance, the resumption of trade negotiations, and leveraging the WTO's instrumentality as measures to resolve the current trade conflict.

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) was signed on November 15, 2020. The agreement covers 15 countries (all ASEAN members, Japan, South Korea, China, Australia and New Zealand) and it constitutes the world's largest free trade deal, covering approximately 1/3 of the global population and economy. The agreement will formally come into force within two years. Some of the main elements of the deal include harmonisation of the rules of origin and delivery of goods as well as elimination or reduction of tariffs.
For Japan, the RCEP is yet another important free-trade agreement (FTA) signed in the last years after the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Japanese-American FTA on certain agricultural products and the FTA with the European Union (EU).
This Brief, authored by Konrad Rumiński, summarises the implications of RCEP for Japan.

This contribution makes the case for the building of a constructive partnership between China and global players, including the United States, the only way to tackle China's trade policy challenges and ensure effective global trade governance. After months-long negotiations, the United States and China may put the finishing touches on a trade deal to end their trade war. Despite advances secured by the U.S., it should be admitted that once again, when it comes to negotiations with China, it is a matter of much ado about nothing. China will remain a unique and pressing challenge for the WTO and its trading partners. It appears that China's trade distortions are the outcome of a singular China's political and legal system promoting a socialist market economy with a state-led and mercantilist trade regime. The trade deal, through its enforcement offices, will not be able to prevent the U.S. from imposing unilateral sanctions against China, nor will it be able to minimise strategic competition between the two States. In this context, pursuing unilateral measures and sanctions to obtain structural reforms protecting U.S. workers, farmers and businesses is largely a futile exercise. Rather, modernizing the China's economic and legal architecture than reforming it should be the cornerstone of a realistic, multifaceted and long-term approach based on a constructive diplomacy, including the creation of new institutions such as a bilateral investment treaty with China and the accession to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, as well as a joint working group on WTO reform with like-minded States capable of exerting upward pressure on China so as to revitalize WTO rules and functions.

In this article the alleged demise of the United States of America (USA) and the ability of its challengers will be discussed and analyzed. Based on George Modelski’s concept of Long-Cycles in Global Politics we can anticipate a disruption in the hegemonic position – currently held by the USA. Considering, the possibility of this scenario, the author executed a pragmatic comparative study and sketches out the chances for the two main competitors – China and India – which struggle mightily with domestic issues and on the other side presents four arguments, why the decline of the USA is not as apparent and looming as partly presumed. The arguments are: (i) the independence supply of natural resources; (ii) its supremacy over the world seas; (iii) reinstated activity in the Rimland and (iiii) control over the Global Commons.

Free trade agreements (FTA) have been increasing in various parts of the world since the early 1990s. Japan has signed economic partnership agreements (EPA), which the Japanese government calls FTAs, with several countries, some of them in Latin America, including Chile, Mexico and Peru.
Despite the fact that Japan has been among Brazil’s top 10 trade partners over the last 15 years, no negotiations have undertaken to confer formal status on the economic integration between the two countries in order to widen their trade relations. Formal status would be the result of signing an EPA. The purpose of this occasional paper is to evaluate the impacts of Japanese trade policy on Japan-Brazil bilateral trade. The paper also addresses the main causes for why Brazil and Japan do not have an EPA, as well as the feasibility of signing one. Actually, according to Southern Common Market (Mercosur) rules, a preferential trade agreement needs to be signed by the four members – Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay – as a bloc; hence Brazil cannot sign separately. However, even though this institutional impediment the Japanese industrial sector incentives FTA where it has foreign direct investment (FDI).
In the first section, this paper discusses the major characteristics of preferential trade agreements and reviews the literature from the standpoints of economics and political science. The next section refers to the evolution of Japanese trade policy since late the 1990 when Japan began to study and negotiate FTAs. The third section presents statistical descriptive data on Japanese trade and an assessment of the consequences on Japan-Brazil trade with the Japanese  FTAs with Chile, Mexico, and Peru by similarity index and by constant market share methodology; the similarity index results show no trade diversion effects on exports from Brazil to Japan, and the constant market share results indicate no trade diversion from Brazil in overall Japanese imports. The last section discusses the feasibility of and the major constraints for a Japan-Brazil/Mercosur FTA. A viable FTA among these countries could be possible since the negotiations do not limit the access for some agricultural products in Japan, and lower or remove protectionist measures for manufactured products in Brazil.

This paper analyzes the systemic implications of mega PTAs, from potential
gains to unintended political repercussions that may arise. This paper is of the view that mega
PTAs will help advance the multilateral trading system regu lations but with risks invo lved. Further  on,
this paper concludes that comprehensive liberalization with openness to new members for harmonizing
rules combined with strengthening the WTO will help minimize the trade -diverting effects of
mega PTAs and increase the chances of multilateralization.

This paper aims to examine the likely evolution of these four large trading
nations  and their interaction through international trade as well as the impact on global trade governance.
This paper will first discuss the evolution of international trade in brief as a background to determine the
fundamental forces shaping the future of international trade that will affect the likely evolution of the
United States, European Union, Japan, and China. Then this paper will discuss each of these four
economies separately followed by analysis on the their likely interaction and its policy implications for
the global governance through WTO.