New Round Of Trade Negotiations Research Articles

Trump Administration Is Ready to Carry “The Burden of Leadership” in the WTO

Trump’s administration is configured negatively to the World Trade Organization (WTO), which it considered ineffective and is allegedly used by some United States trading partners to achieve trade and political objectives contrary to American interests. Some American claims to the WTO, at least partially, are shared by other members of the organization. The process of improving international trade rules is clearly not keeping up with the pace of change in the world. Signs of the WTO erosion are evident in advocating increased use of trade policy instruments outside the organization under the pretext of protecting national interests and national security, the introduction of new trade sanctions and other restrictive measures, the crisis of the system for the settlement of trade disputes. The absence of multilaterally agreed arrangements on the reform of the WTO encourages the Trump Administration to act unilaterally. The United States stated their right to apply the restrictive measures against the WTO members under the pretext of protecting national security, insisting on the need for a selective approach to decisions taken not in their favor, probe to eradicate undesirable for this country most favored nation trade regime (MFN), and accentuate the flaws of multilateralism in trade negotiations. Against this backdrop, the Trump Administration announced its willingness “to lead the international efforts” for the reformatting of the WTO with a view to restoring its sole political leadership in the organization. However, aggressive, reckless and uncoordinated with the partners of the United States actions untie hands to other countries to protect their own interests, both within the legal framework of the WTO and beyond, making the risks of returning to the priority of force factor on the principle of “everyone for himself ”. The future of the multilateral trading system, the scope and depth of these reforms will largely be determined by the coherence or uncoordinated actions of key players - the United States, China and the EU. While the contribution of other countries, including Russia, could also be significant. The priorities will be the prevention of further escalation of trade conflicts and preparation of the conditions for a new round of trade negotiations.

Data, Trade, and Growth

Cross-border data flows are a major aspect of today’s global economy. Moreover, the volume of cross-border data flows is growing at a rapid rate, with data flowing through terrestrial and submarine cables, and to a much lesser extent via satellites. According to TeleGeography, a consulting firm that keeps track of international data flows, demand for international bandwidth increased at a compound annual rate of 49 percent between 2008 and 2012. Cross-border data flows are also increasingly critical in trade negotiations. Cross-border data flows are one of the main subjects of the new round of trade negotiations announced by the United States Trade Representative, Ambassador Ron Kirk in January 2013. Similarly, the European Union is considering new data privacy regulations that would impact flows of data in and out of the EU. Ironically, statistics about the magnitude of cross-border data flows are scarce, despite their growing economic and political importance. The trade report from the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Analysis contains some information about imports and exports of telecommunications services, but we show that these figures likely miss much of the increase in cross-border data traffic because of fundamental changes in the structure of global networks. Similarly, international agencies such as the ITU only collect fragmentary statistics on cross-border data flows, though they are putting more effort into estimating such figures. Moreover, we may not have the right conceptual framework for thinking about the economic impact of cross-border data flows. The usual categories of exports and imports don’t apply very well to cross-border data flows, since it’s not clear that an outflow of data from a country should count as an export. Indeed, long-established conventions treat outgoing international phone calls as imports, even though both the originating network and the receiving network play an equal role in the call. We will see below the assignment of outgoing international phone calls to the import category is essentially an artifact of regulation. This paper is intended as a preliminary exploration of the empirical, conceptual, and policy aspects of cross-border data flows. There are six sections. • An examination of how cross-border data flows are being reported — and not being reported — in the current trade statistics. • A typology of cross-border data flows. • An analysis of the magnitude of cross-border data flows, based on a comparison all internet/IP traffic. We find that for the United States, cross-border flows are roughly 16-25% of all U.S. data traffic, which is very significant. Cross-border data flows between Europe and the rest of the world equal roughly 13-16% of all European data traffic. These estimates, which should be treated as highly imprecise and tentative, suggest that the United States is more interconnected with the rest of the world than Europe. • An initial analysis of the economic benefits of cross-border data flows. In particular, we develop a framework for measuring the impact of data flows that cross borders without leaving a monetary footprint. • We explore the implications of latency as the equivalent of the “cost of shipping” for data. • Finally, we briefly examine the effects of policy on data, trade, and growth. An early draft of this paper was presented at a non-reviewed conference on “Measuring the Effects of Globalization” (Washington DC, February 28-March 1, 2013).

Advancing Sustainable Development in Global Trade and Multilateral Negotiations

Published by Palgrave Macmillan World exports and imports are quickly recovering after the 2008-09 sharp decline in merchandise trade, as illustrated by global trade performances in the first and second quarters of 2010. In spite of this impressive recovery, domestic concerns in OECD countries about employment, competitiveness and China’s exchange rate policy have created a difficult political environment for further liberalisation under the Doha Round. Interestingly, developing countries, which were reluctant to engage in a new round of trade negotiations back in 2001, are now in the vanguard of those that wish for a swift conclusion of the talks, even if consensus on the ambitious ‘development package’ envisaged in Doha remains elusive. At the same time trade has been the subject of unprecedented attention and scrutiny in the climate change talks. In a world where multilateral cooperation is in crisis there is a dire need for the international community to generate new types of arrangements and innovative responses to the imperatives of development and the global transition to a low-carbon economy.

How Effective are WTO Disciplines on Domestic Support and Market Access for Agriculture?

A new round of trade negotiations through the World Trade Organization (WTO) was launched in 2001. One of the major aims of the Doha Development Round is to reduce agricultural protection and impose greater discipline on domestic agricultural subsidies, particularly those that are the most trade distorting. In this article, we examine whether the proposed WTO modalities for agriculture will actually achieve this aim in Norway, which ranks among the top providers of government assistance for agriculture. Norway has a complex system of farm subsidies buttressed by substantial import protection. The extent to which its agricultural support policies will have to change in response to new WTO disciplines provides an important indication of how successful these are likely to be. We find that Norway will probably be able to sustain its current agricultural activity and production levels while staying within the new WTO rules. Following recent practice in some other WTO members, Norway will be able to reduce its notified support without making real changes in some of its programmes. However, there will have to be a shift from market price support, which is paid for by consumers through higher food prices, to budgetary support paid by taxpayers. This could generate increased domestic pressure for policy reform.

The Road From Doha: The Issues for the Development Round of the Wto and the Future of International Trade

After the debacle in Seattle in December 1999, the Fourth Ministerial Conference of WTO members took place successfully under tight security in the capital city, Doha, of the small Arabian state of Qatar in November 2001. The Doha conference did not adopt any new treaty or protocoll to add to the network of WTO agreements already in place. It did, however, approve a ‘broad and balance ’ work programme in the form of two declarations—a main declaration and one on trade related intellectual property rights (TRIPS) and public health, plus a decision on implementation designed to alleviate the difficulties of developing countries in implementing the existing WTO agreements. In other words, the Doha conference agreed on the nature and scope of the next round of trade negttiations, named as the ‘Development Round’. Although some least-developed countries had argued that ‘no new round should be started until there has been full implementation of the agreements concluded in the last Round, and an evaluation of their effects done’, the Doha Conference decided to start a new round of trade negotiations. How development oriented is the agenda of the new round of trade negotiations? What is going to be negotiated during th e negotiations? Is it indeed going to be a ‘Development Round’ in more than name? The object of this article is to analyse the background to the Doha conference, to assess the nature of negotiations at the conference and to evaluate its outcome.

India at the Doha ministerial meeting: an analysis

The outcome of the Fourth Session of the WTO (World Trade Organisation) Ministerial Conference at Doha, 9–13 November 2001, has been a mixed bag. On a balance, however, it seemed to have achieved more than anticipated gains for India in select critical and contentious areas. In the period preceding the Ministerial Conference, generally opposing views on issues to be included in the agenda for negotiations were discernible. Whilst the DMD (Draft Ministerial Declaration) that aimed at charting the immediate agenda for negotiation at the Ministerial Conference did not explicitly mention a new round of trade negotiations, it covered all the issues that clearly pointed towards a broad-based agenda being imminent. India and some other developing countries continued to oppose the launch of a new round. They stressed the resolution of commitments made under the Uruguay Round before an expansion of the scope of multilateral trade negotiations to include other issues, such as investment, competition policy, transparency in government procurement, trade facilitation, labour, and environment. On the other hand, developed countries, particularly the United States and the EU (European Union) strongly favoured the launch of a new round of trade negotiations that would address these issues. The focus of this paper is on a preand post-Doha analysis of what India set out to achieve for itself and its successes and failures. Further, the paper attempts to outline pragmatically some directions for the future.

Seizing the Future: The South, Sustainable Development and International Trade

The failure at Seattle to agree the mandate for a new round of trade negotiations represents a dual crisis, not only for the trade community, but also for those supporting a shift to sustainable development. At the root of the crisis lies the North-South faultline, with an embedded sense of inequity keeping developing countries forever wary of the industrialized countries, not least on linkages between trade and the environment. But Seattle also showed that the South's current non-strategy towards trade and environment-opposing any formal linkage within the WTO, for example-is flawed. As a result, the South is now seen as the global scapegoat for inaction on trade and environment, and has shut itself out of opportunities to shape the direction of the debate. Furthermore, trade and environmental factors are being progressively linked in the marketplace-not because of the WTO, but in spite of it. The challenge for the South is to take a more proactive approach, generating a positive agenda for change based on issues of sustainable livelihoods, environmental justice and sustainable development more broadly. One starting point is to test current policy positions against the alternative visions of the future-for example, through scenario planning-and to develop a robust ‘no regrets’ programme for engagement. The South has the most to gain from a world structured around the norms of sustainable development, and, as a result, it has the primary responsibility for reorienting the goals of trade away from the limited agenda of ‘free trade’, towards the more inclusive programme of ‘sustainable trade’. Whether this reorientation takes place, and whether the South takes a hand in shaping this process, will be one of the central questions for the years ahead.

Trade, competition and antidumping—Breaking the impasse!?

Recent reviews of the WTO, while cautioning against broadening its scope, nevertheless agree that antidumping concerns would need to be addressed “somehow”. Obviously, promoting international market access and “fair” competition is difficult in the presence of divergent rules for dealing with private market power and non-border restraints to trade. This is especially true once these differences are taken to justify preferences for highly discretionary trade policy measures in dealing with dumping concerns. Antidumping and the prerequisite competition issues will therefore have to be put onto the agenda of the new round of trade negotiations.

Developing countries in the WTO: Support or resist the 'millennium' round?

A fundamental question to be decided at the November/December 1999 World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministerial meeting is whether to support or resist a new round of trade negotiations. The author argues that while many developing countries, and development NGOs, are right to feel that the earlier Uruguay round produced results skewed in favour of developed countries, there is nothing to be gained from resisting a new round: rather, developing countries should signal their willingness to get involved, but only if certain conditions are met. `[C]onstructive, but critical, support' is the only way to realise benefits and avoid further marginalisation.

Textiles and Clothing in a New Round of Trade Negotiations

Because developing countries generally have a comparative advantage in the production of labor-intensive textiles and clothing, the liberalization of trade in these products is critical to their prospects for increasing foreign exchange earnings. The new round of trade negotiations is likely to be less important for trade in textiles and clothing, however, than were the recent renegotiations of the fourth Multifibre Arrangement (MFA). As the MFA remains in effect until July 1991, this limits the range of measures which can be altered in the interim. Nonetheless, textile trade will influence the process and outcome of the current negotiations because of the overlap of textile trade disputes with other broader trade issues. These include tariffs, the rollback of tariffs and quotas, voluntary export restraints, and other nontariff barriers, all of which have been applied to textiles trade at various times. Each of these measures has an influence on trade flows and a cost to both the importing and exporting countries. Any proponents of liberalization of trade in textiles and clothing must not only be familiar with these costs but also must be knowledgeable about the economic and political forces which have initiated and sustained the protective measures. The following discussion suggests that there are groups and transitional approaches which may favor some progress in textile trade liberalization in the current round of negotiations. The Multifibre Arrangement (MFA), the international rules which govern much

Chemical Industry Prepares for New Round of Trade Negotiations

Now that the elections are over and President will be returning to the White House for another four years, trade officials in the chemical industry are wondering if they will have to start preparing for a Reagan of multilateral trade negotiations. Such a possibility is already being actively considered in several chemical industry forums—among them the Chemical Manufacturers Association, Synthetic Organic Chemical Manufacturers Association, and Office of the Chemical Industry Trade Advisor. It's no secret that the Administration is pushing for a new round of multilateral trade negotiations (MTN) that would be held under the auspices of the General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade (GATT). The last major round of GATT trade discussions—the Tokyo round—ended five years ago. Results of the Tokyo round, which dragged on from 1973 to 1979, are still being implemented. Administration trade officials, nevertheless, think it's time to start looking ahead to a new round of trade ...