News

Promise for the Common Market in East Africa

An agreement to establish a common market with the East African Community (EAC) has recently been signed to promote trade among East Africa’s economies: Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. While this new deal contains some of the pitfalls that have plagued other attempts to stimulate the currently pathetically low levels of intra-African trade, there is room for hope that this time it will be different.

Success! EU members overturn shoe tariffs

You may recall that about a month ago, the Freedom to Trade campaign wrote about how EU once again fell prey to protecting vested interests, this time by threatening to extend a tariff to protect EU footwear producers -- primarily in Italy and Poland. In a surprisingly sensible move welcomed by the Freedom to Trade Campaign, EU member states have voted to repeal these duties (by not extending them). This is only the first step -- the Commission must vote before the end of the year to make this a binding decision -- but it's a good sign.

"No Longer Us versus Them"- release of the Spanish edition

Today International Policy Network released the Spanish version of Dan Ikenson’s “No Longer Us versus Them: Trade Policy for the 21st Century.”

“Ya no se trata de Ellos contra Nosotros” cogently documents why international trade can no longer be viewed in a simplistic “winners vs losers” fashion. It details the enormous benefits of the internationalised global trading network:

“The removal of political and technological barriers to trade over the past two decades has had huge ramifications. In the new globalised economy, a product might be designed by teams in the USA and India, have components produced in Thailand, Poland and Mexico, while final assembly takes place in China, from where it is distributed to millions of consumers around the world. The benefits, equally widespread, include: better, less expensive products, more rewarding and higher paying jobs, and economic growth.”

A full version of the paper is available to download here in English and Spanish.

Hypocritical platitudes will not solve Sino-U.S. trade disputes

Barak Obama’s discussion of U.S trade with China, during his tour of East Asia, has been inundated with the same old platitudes about “resisting” protectionism and “encouraging” bilateral trade. Such is the consistency of the pleasantries emerging from the Washington and Beijing camps that one is almost beguiled into missing the hypocrisy behind this rhetoric. In reality over the last twelve months, the U.S. and China have implemented a series of tit for tat trade restrictions that have harmed trade between the countries- U.S. import tariffs on Chinese tyres, Chinese import taxes on nylon, U.S. import tariffs on steel and so on.

GM (and the U.S. tax-payers) lose even more money!

Yet more evidence of the triumph of trade over state-aid was revealed earlier this week with the announcement that General Motors has lost $1.2 billion in the third quarter of 2009, continuing GM’s dismal run of profit (or rather, loss) postings. The U.S. government owns 61 per cent of GM as a result of the $50 billion bail-out package. This announcement comes just three months after the company emerged from bankruptcy protection and just three weeks after Ford - who were the only major American automobile manufacturer not to claim any state aid - reported profits of almost $1 billion for the same period.

Trade, not boondoggling, is the answer to Africa's food insecurities

Government officials meet in Rome today for talks about hunger and famine at the latest U.N. boondoggle- the World Summit on Food Security. However, for the leaders present the real causes of these problems are to be found much closer to home- in their domestic trade policies- than in the charming cafes and cobbled streets of the Italian capital.

A report released yesterday, “Fixing Famine: How Technologies & Incentives Can Help Feed Africa,” details some of the many barriers to trading that African agricultural exporters face. These trade barriers exacerbate Africa’s already-weak agricultural system and are one of the principal causes of the regular, but entirely preventable, bouts of famine that afflict the continent.

Obama's Hypocrisy

In the FT’s Rachman blog, Alan Beattie nicely highlights the blatant hypocrisy and poor grasp of semantics demonstrated by Obama and his team in their message to the Asian economies during his tour of the region. After all, if raising import tariffs is not protectionism, then what is?

NEWSFLASH- Protectionism is Self-defeating

Yesterday the Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Hsieng Loong, reasserted the mutually damaging effects of protectionism upon trade, confirming what we all know- protectionist measures hurt everyone and ultimately are self-defeating.

Tackling Protectionism at the APEC Singapore Summit - New Briefing Paper

A briefing paper released today by International Policy Network today calls on APEC leaders to practice what they preach on trade during the upcoming Summit in Singapore. All APEC Leaders have boasted of their ability to resist protectionism over the past twelve months, but the sad reality is that 18 of APEC's 21 Members have implemented protectionist measures over this period. Most egregiously, some of APEC's biggest members are imposing specific trade barriers against each other - We're talking about you, Beijing and Washington! Read below for a summary of "Combating Protectionism and Boosting Growth at APEC 2009 Singapore Summit".

Defending “Frenchness” at the Expense of Consumers and the Developing World

President Nicolas Sarkozy has recently unveiled a EUR 1.65 billion rescue package for French farmers, which will serve to further protect “fortress Europe’s” farmers and pile yet more misery upon farmers in developing nations. Sarkozy claims the latest state aid package for French farmers is essential to help “defend national identity” and address a “fundamental structural crisis in the [French] agricultural sector.”