Search Results for: protectionism
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Enrico Colombatto: The European Central Bank’s monetary policy is under pressure
As the specters of inflation and recession fade, demands for pro-growth eurozone monetary policy are becoming louder. The ECB has good reasons to hesitate.
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Mojmír Hampl: Where have all the economists gone?
Support for free trade is nearly a consensus view among economic experts. Yet amid growing threats posed by deglobalization, economists are failing to stand in its defense.
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Michael Leigh: Elections and a challenging time for Europe
The European Union faces a difficult patch in 2024. In the extreme, some of its historical developments could be rolled back and eager policies diluted.
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Enrico Colombatto: Foreign trade – clouds on the horizon
German trade statistics are sagging. Most commentators attribute this phenomenon to the global business cycle. More likely, today’s figures are the outcome of earlier decisions made by German companies to move resources outside of Europe, and they are now developing their products elsewhere.
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Enrico Colombatto: The mysterious case of CEOs turning green
It is unusual when CEOs purport to define their companies’ overarching objectives. Things become even more curious when top managers team up with a bureaucracy to call for the imposition of tighter environmental standards on business.
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Teresa Nogueira Pinto: Ethiopia-Somaliland deal risks regional tensions
Ethiopia and Somaliland stand to benefit from the agreement, which will likely reshape geopolitical allegiances across the Horn of Africa.
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Enrico Colombatto: Trump’s trade war is poised for a Pyrrhic victory
The flip side of the Trump administration’s drive to reduce the U.S. foreign trade deficit is that it will leave the rest of the world with fewer dollars to finance its budget deficit. President Trump could cut spending drastically or persuade the Federal Reserve to buy more bonds, but neither seems likely.
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Prince Michael of Liechtenstein: The West still misunderstands the Global South
Old industrial countries’ paternalistic approach to Global South countries is wrongheaded and impractical.
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Diane Katz: No easy way back for U.S. manufacturing
President Donald Trump declared on October 1 that the new trade deal with Canada and Mexico signifies the return of the U.S. as a “manufacturing powerhouse,” which has indeed changed dramatically since 1992. But the complex and varied factors that have reshaped factory production in the U.S. cannot be summarily reversed.
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Enrico Colombatto: The EU’s next challenge: Emerging markets
For the global economy, the road ahead is unusually clear – it is headed for a gentle slowdown. But that is no reason for complacency. The next wave of trouble is already visible in the developing countries, which are highly vulnerable to rising interest rates. The EU could do much to prevent the economic slowdown if it cared to.
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Prince Michael of Liechtenstein: Dark clouds gathering over the global economy
We are probably coming to the end of a global economic recovery. But with interest rates still hovering around zero, central banks will have no ammunition to fight a recession. Meanwhile, debt is high and more trade barriers are going up. The underlying causes in imbalances of global economy must be addressed.
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Michael Leigh: Brexit and trade
Brexit talks were supposed to be concluded at the EU summit on October 17. But the deadline passed with no breakthrough. With the clock to a “hard Brexit” ticking down, this could be the salutary shock needed to reach a compromise — or point to a future in which encourages a drift toward protectionism.
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Enrico Colombatto: The WTO drifts toward irrelevance
The WTO is a relatively cheap international organization, but it has achieved little since its creation in 1995. Reforms could make the WTO more useful, especially if they turned it into a body that collects fines from those who violate simple rules – with no exceptions.
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Teresa Nogueira Pinto: Charting the course of Africa’s aviation sector
A growing middle class, increasing continental integration and huge economic potential all provide reason to be optimistic about the future of Africa’s aviation sector. Yet many governments still see the industry as a cash cow or point of national pride.
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Prince Michael of Liechtenstein: Is the world safe from major war?
From trade protectionism to government overspending, bad economic ideas are weakening the world’s stability, while increasingly confrontational policies are adopted by global and regional powers.
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Teresa Nogueira Pinto: Reforming the African Union
Africa in 2018 was marked by important advances on the economic front, with the agreement to create a Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA). While trade liberalization has the potential to be transformative for Africa, disparate stages of development, protectionist impulses, and political tensions may prevent meaningful advances.
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Enrico Colombatto: 2018 Global Outlook: World trade
After a surprisingly good 2017, world trade should do even better this year. But that doesn’t mean that Europe and the United States can afford to be passive. China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which will turn most of Asia into a privileged trade zone, demands a choice – either join the initiative or promote free trade outside it.
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Pramit Pal Chaudhuri: Modi looks inward on trade
The government of India has implemented a protectionist policy on trade, taking measures to boost domestic manufacturing. Yet exports have failed to increase, in part because of red tape and poor logistics.
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Walter Lohman: Asia-Pacific countries look for signs of hope in Trump trade policy
Over the past two years, protectionism has dominated U.S. trade policy decisions regarding the Asia-Pacific region. However, there are signs that the administration could soften its stance and return to more pro-free trade policies. If it does, that could lay the groundwork for a return to bigger economic engagement in the region.
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Rudolf G. Adam: Globalization: From cooperation to confrontation
Disruptive challenges to the global liberal order are intensifying. The future of globalization will be shaped by factors like climate change, protectionism, public debt and resource scarcities.
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Prince Michael of Liechtenstein: RCEP: A wake-up call for Europe
With the RCEP, Asian and Pacific countries have created the largest and most powerful trade zone in the world. To prioritize economic growth, the member states have put aside political issues. This could serve as an example for Europe.
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Henrique Schneider: Microchips subsidies: Protectionism, not security
The political popularity of the European Chips Act does not necessarily make centrally planned investment in chip manufacturing a great idea.
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Tatiana L. Palermo: The future of free trade
Popularity for free trade is decreasing. The WTO has failed to rein in China’s unfair economic practices since 2001, so there is no enforcement of international trade rules. This could be fatal for post-Covid recovery.
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Rudolf G. Adam: Beyond Russia’s war against Ukraine
With irreconcilable war aims between the combatants, the conflict will drag into 2024 and inflict more damage to the global economy and long-standing security arrangements.
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Enrico Colombatto: What’s wrong with the renminbi exchange rate?
Even before the most recent disagreement, the U.S. had already begun drawing attention to a new question: whether China had been engaging in protectionism by manipulating its currency. The argument reveals confused ideas about what the U.S. wants: a dominant role for the dollar or an renminbi to please American producers.
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Thitinan Pongsudhirak: The age-old nature of the ‘new Cold War’
Russia’s war in Ukraine and the rise of China signal an ideological challenge to the Western order, of the kind thought buried with the Soviet Union.
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Prince Michael of Liechtenstein: Goodbye free trade!
The EU’s answer to the United States’ most recent subsidy program will harm Europe’s global competitiveness.
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Prince Michael of Liechtenstein: Geoeconomics in constant change
Global economic winds are shifting, and not necessarily in the way most people expect.
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Tatiana L. Palermo: Mercosur divided
Instead of pushing for more free trade, some members of Mercosur are using it to protect their own industries. The rift may spell the end of the customs union.
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Prince Michael of Liechtenstein: Don’t lose Africa
Africa is the continent of the future. Yet Europe and the United States are not paying enough attention to its 1.4 billion people. They are losing influence to China and Russia.
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Pramit Pal Chaudhuri: India has limited ability to feed a hungry world
Government subsidies and inadequate investment have led to low agricultural productivity, often leaving India with harvests that can do little more than meet domestic food demand.
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Henrique Schneider: Climate barriers to global trade
Restricting trade for the sake of fighting climate change risks having the opposite effect.
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Prince Michael of Liechtenstein: Can technocracies represent the free world in a global conflict?
Instead of endlessly invoking Western values, the democratic world ought to respond to global tensions by restoring its true economic and political strengths.
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Prince Michael of Liechtenstein: Reassessing the geopolitics of rising China
The U.S. secretary of state calls the task of finding more creative and assertive ways of containing China the “mission of our time” for the Western world. The challenge is not going to be easy, as the Chinese Communist Party plays its considerable strengths well.
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Enrico Colombatto: Trade wars: the options for Europe
Although U.S. President Trump maintains that he believes in free trade, his policy tool remains protectionism. Europe could do more to change this. For example, engage in aggressive free trade or seek bilateral deals. President Trump would be left with few justifications for trade barriers, and Brussels would acquire prominence on the world stage.
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Urs Schöttli: The new geopolitics of trade in Asia
Tensions between the United States and China continue to fracture Asia along economic lines, exacerbating a global trend toward protectionism.
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Enrico Colombatto: Equity markets and the global economy
Company earnings are a powerful driver of financial markets. Recently, however, they have been sending contradictory signals. One reason could be the expansionary credit policies of the past decade, which have distorted balance sheets and weakened competition.
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Urs Schöttli: Japan’s valuable footprint in Africa
After reassessing its strategic interests, an internationalist-minded Japan has made African relations a higher priority.
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Enrico Colombatto: China: what’s next? Unemployment
The rising labor costs and low productivity growth in China may lead to a decline in consumer confidence and poor performance of the economy.
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Enrico Colombatto: U.S. interest rates: Where will they take us?
President Trump worries that the Federal Reserve is raising interest rates too quickly. In fact, the Fed has engaged in moderate tightening so far. By mid-2019, it is likely to end the cycle and hold rates steady. At that point, Trump will not be able to blame the Fed for any fiscal trouble and will have to implement reforms to spur growth.
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James Jay Carafano: The U.S.-German rapport: The transatlantic X-factor
As seen from the U.S., Germany is consumed by internal political strife and incapable of creating valuable relations. So, for the next few years, Washington intends to manage bilateral relations on a transactional basis. At the same time, President Trump has reemphasized the U.S.-UK partnership and put more stock on ties with Central Europe.
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Emmanuel Martin: Macron and the European strategic autonomy trope
The notion that Europe needs a separate security strategy and a military force aside from NATO animates mostly the officials in Paris, but the idea stubbornly returns.
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Aparna Pande: India’s good year
The world’s most populous nation is on the rise, strengthening its position through high-profile events and aligning with both Western and non-Western groupings.
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Frank Umbach: The growing importance of raw material supplies
As new technologies grow in popularity, rare earths and other critical raw materials like lithium and cobalt are becoming crucial to the global economy. But their production is often concentrated in one or two countries, raising the risk that supply could be cut off suddenly.
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Aparna Pande: India basks in prominence on the global stage
By hosting key international events this year, New Delhi hopes to reshape the world order in its favor.
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Tatiana L. Palermo: World race to self-sufficiency in strategic manufacturing
Global value chains have been shrinking for a decade; the pandemic has only accelerated the process. Western countries are now racing to reshore parts of their strategic manufacturing and make supply chains more resilient. China, meanwhile, continues its quest for dominance.
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Joseph S. Tulchin: Prospects for Latin American economies in 2019
Latin America’s economies are facing a series of problems in 2019. Those, that failed to prepare for the current downturn in prices deal with a loss of revenues and foreign investment. Corruption and quality of life issues have presented other challenges, and the benefits of a recent trade deal with the EU are neither immediate nor assured.
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Evgeny Gontmakher: A closer look at the Eurasian Economic Union
In theory, the Eurasian Economic Union should be an important economic influence globally. Yet it has struggled to find relevance, not least because it has not managed to build true economic integration. Can it overcome the hurdles?
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Diane Katz: The security risks of 5G
The 5th generation of cellular wireless technology, or 5G, will connect the world like never before and present serious security vulnerabilities. At the same time, the Chinese presence in telecommunications sectors across the globe is growing. The U.S. is concerned China could gain access to sensitive data.
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John Polga-Hecimovich: Postelection Brazil: The house is still divided
Brazilian voters narrowly retired a rumpus conservative incumbent to give a third term to a bearded socialist who had presided over epic corruption. Do not expect bright results.