News

Julian Morris in WSJ: Starving for Freedom

Today is World Food Day -- but millions in Africa are at risk of starvation as a famine looms. Julian Morris, executive director of IPN, writes about the underlying causes of the famine in today's Wall Street Journal: "If Africans are to to weather their existing and future climates, the solutions must come from the bottom up," he argues.

World Food Day: Free Trade only way to achieve Food Security

Caroline Boin, Project Director at International Policy Network and Douglas Soutgate, Agricultural Economist at Ohio State University, use the occasion of 2009 World Food Day to point out how famine and hunger are caused by bad policies in this excellent article in the Business Daily (Kenya). Harmful trade policies are chief among the culprits:

"But farmers are hit especially hard: overall, African farmers pay 60 per cent more in export taxes than other African businesses."

China and EU Trade Dispute Continues...Nuts! (And Bolts)

On Monday China filled a formal complaint with the WTO over a trade dispute with the EU involving nuts and bolts. Yes, nuts and bolts. This dispute between China and the EU is just the most recent in a series of tit-for-tat tariffs.

Three Cheers for Chile

There is plenty to be cheerful about in Chile in the run up to presidential elections this December. Two decades of trade liberalisation have built a trade and investment regime that, according to the latest Trade Policy Review published by the WTO this week, is characterized by,

‘…openness, transparency, predictability and inter-sectoral neutrality,’

EU Consumers Still Footing the Bill for Protectionism

Global footwear producers have slammed the European Commission’s proposal this week to extend anti-dumping duties on EU imports of Chinese and Vietnamese shoes for a further 15 months.

The duties have already cost the members of the European Footwear Alliance $1.18 billion and the EFA, who represents manufacturers such as Nike, Adidas and Timberland, said that the duties will only cause yet more harm to the consumer.

Damage from tyre tariffs becoming apparent

President Obama tried to bury news about implementing restrictions on Chinese tyre imports, but the recently-announced tariff has already triggered losses in the United States, threats of retaliation from China, and worst of all, invited other protectionist to state their case for more trade barriers against Chinese and other imports. This Wall Street Journal article explains both the immediate and long-term threats caused by President Obama's executive order to harm the American and Chinese economies.

Freedom to trade matters most for the world's poorest

The prospects for farmers in rural India - some of the poorest people on the planet - have improved dramatically as a result of new opportunities to trade their produce with the rest of the world, according to this fascinating article in the Financial Times. For the first time, these poor Indian farmers in the poorest states in India have the opportunity to access market prices that are not interfered with by either the government or the local middle-men who rigged the local market in their favour.

But the entry of modern market institutions such as the NSE – a unit of the Multi-Commodity Exchange (MCX), the country’s largest commodity market – into neglected states such as Bihar is part of what is increasingly being recognised as one of India’s most important social and economic crusades: to extend the benefits of modern trade and finance to India’s rural masses.

Verdict on Pittsburgh: global economy moves on in spite of G20

"Few people who actually work in companies trading across borders will pay heed to the empty pieties emanating from Pittsburgh. It is businesses and consumers, not bureaucrats, that will get trade moving again. There are reasons to be optimistic on trade, but the G20 is not among them."

From Alan Beattie's column in the Financial Times.

Can Obama really keep his word on trade?

Yet more American companies are filing anti-dumping claims against Chinese producers, according to this Wall Street Journal article. Obama talked the talk last week at the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh -- as he did in April 2009 -- but his recent decision to cave in to domestic pressure in the Chinese tyre tariff debacle paves the way for more deliberate policy moves to disrupt the flow of trade from China. Will he have the spine to prevent more American companies from getting their way, even if it means vandalising the American economy.

Protectionism won't heal Africa's sick

Roger Bate argues that import tariffs on medicines are harming Africa's sick - by making them pay more for quality medicines and increasing the risk that they unknowingly purchase dodgy fakes in this Wall Street Journal op-ed.