MESSAGE
| DATE | 2020-11-18 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] More of the same puts our healthcare system at
|
Trade Restrictions Relax After Early Pandemic Surge
Paul Hannon
4-5 minutes
A surge in new trade restrictions that began in 2017 has waned over the
course of 2020, as governments eased some of the barriers they put up
early in the coronavirus pandemic.
In the early weeks of the outbreak, a number of governments rushed to
protect their supplies of medical equipment and food, imposing a series
of restrictions on exports. That led to fears of a fresh escalation of
trade conflicts.
But in a twice-yearly report on trade measures taken by the Group of 20
leading economies, the World Trade Organization said governments took
fewer actions to either ease or restrict trade than in the previous
six-month period, while most of the actions they did take were intended
to free the movement of goods across borders.
That period of relative peace comes as President-elect Joe Biden begins
to craft his new trade policies and prepares to review the many new
levies on global imports imposed by President Trump. Those levies, many
on China, played a central role in raising global trade tensions in the
years leading into the pandemic.
The Geneva-based dispute settlement body said the decline in trade
measures reflected a focus on the more pressing business of containing
the pandemic, as well as the fact that there was much less trade to
restrict.
The WTO said G-20 members had announced 133 trade measures that were
specifically related to the pandemic. Of those, it judged 84 to be
intended to facilitate trade, and 49 to restrict trade.
It also said that many measures—on products such as disinfectants and
personal protective equipment—enacted in the early stages of the
pandemic had been reversed.
However, the WTO noted that the modest number of new measures designed
to limit imports came on top of an already large stock of measures that
have accumulated since 2009, and now cover almost 10% of G-20 imports.
Newsletter Sign-up
Notes on the News
Today’s headlines, news in context, and good reads you may have missed,
with Tyler Blint-Welsh.
Global Trade Alert, a nongovernmental trade-monitoring group in Geneva,
was much more critical in its assessment of global trade policies. In a
report released Monday on the first 10 months of the year, it recorded a
jump in measures that affected trade partners from the same period last
year, and said most of those were negative.
“For sure, not every element of pandemic response had consequences for
trading partners,” said Simon J. Evenett, a professor of economics at
the University of St. Gallen and founder of the GTA. “Of those that did,
three-quarters were harmful.”
The GTA found that the U.K. and the U.S. enacted the largest number of
measures that hurt their trade partners, with 124 and 117 such actions
respectively. Both countries have historically seen themselves as
advocates of free trade.
The GTA’s definition of a trade-related measure is broader than that of
the WTO, and it included countries outside the G-20. Both reports were
published ahead of a virtual meeting of G-20 leaders which is due to
take place on Nov. 21 and 22.
Biden’s China Policy: New President-Elect, Same Tensions
0:00 / 7:00
4:03
Biden’s China Policy: New President-Elect, Same Tensions
Biden’s China Policy: New President-Elect, Same Tensions
President-elect Joe Biden has sent signals that the U.S. will remain
tough on China, from trade to technology. WSJ’s Jonathan Cheng explains
the new administration’s policy approach and how China might respond.
Photo: Lintao Zhang/AP
--
So many immigrant groups have swept through our town
that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological
proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998
http://www.mrbrklyn.com
DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002
http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software
http://www.brooklyn-living.com
Being so tracked is for FARM ANIMALS and extermination camps,
but incompatible with living as a free human being. -RI Safir 2013
_______________________________________________
Hangout mailing list
Hangout-at-nylxs.com
http://lists.mrbrklyn.com/mailman/listinfo/hangout
|
|
