News and analysis on trade policy in Europe
Wednesday, January 20, 2021
WTO member countries are set to defer a decision to how best to overhaul the tariff rate quota system for agricultural imports until the end of 2021, after a series of meetings in Geneva over the past two years have ended in deadlock. A review mechanism which was launched in …
An initiative to liberalise trade in ‘green’ goods and services, and to end subsidies on fossil fuels, has been launched by a small group of countries at this week’s UN General Assembly in New York. The initiative, led by New Zealand, is intended to show that trade policy can serve …
The United States have tried to address long-standing trade concerns with China by using tariffs as a means to put pressure on Beijing. But tariffs won’t likely extract the concessions that Washington is hoping for. A different negotiating tactic involving a balanced agreement with China and cooperation with allies may …
A new fault line is emerging in the crisis of the World Trade Organizations’ dispute settlement system. The European Union, which tabled proposals aimed at strengthening the Appellate Body’s independence – and won over China and India over to its ideas last year – is now facing a coalition of …
Two alpha-males met in Washington yesterday and displayed their mastery of the Art of the Deal. But it’s worth looking at at the fine print of the Brazil-United States understanding reached last night.
This week more than half the World Trade Organization’s membership formally kick-started negotiations towards a ‘plurilateral’ agreement on e-commerce.
Four dozen World Trade Organization members including the EU, China and the US will kick off negotiations on digital trade in March in a move designed to reinvigorate the beleaguered trade body. Meanwhile, a group of ‘like-minded’ members led by Canada warned that risks to the multilateral trading system – …
Globalisation and robotics will eventually improve the world, but they are creating competition for services jobs that is coming quickly and in ways that will seem very unfair, Richard Baldwin tells Borderlex. Workers and governments must prepare for the advance of ‘globotics’.
Venezuela struck back this week against US sanctions targeting the government of President Nicolás Maduro, filing a World Trade Organization complaint that accuses Washington of imposing “coercive trade-restrictive measures on the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in the context of attempts to isolate Venezuela economically”. The dispute is the latest touching …
The US and a dozen other World Trade Organization members have finally agreed about something concerning the Appellate Body: the WTO’s highest court has no authority to issue rulings that set a binding precedent. This issue is a non-issue in the eyes of WTO members including the EU, Canada, Japan …
