Trade

The EU’s half-baked response to the US investment offensive is putting its competitiveness and our future prosperity at risk. Now is the time for deeper European integration and major adjustments to EU treaty law.

The 20 authors of the 15 papers in this series illuminate the depth of the problems in the three specific fields of international trade, digital governance, and climate finance, with special attention to human rights and gender equality. The researchers illustrate the profound failures of national governments and international mechanisms, and often reflect the frustrations of populations or countries that feel the rich and powerful are running roughshod over the poor, marginalized, and vulnerable for their own outsized benefit, and are doing so with impunity.

Major multilateral institutions have long claimed that their market-oriented trade rules reduce poverty and advance development. Instead, they hold back the developing world from a more human-centric, social-justice approach that it needs to reach its potential. South Africa has the potential to set an example of how a global “middle power” can drive change. The Covid-19 pandemic has provided extra impetus – and a test.

The need for cross-border data sharing throughout the Covid-19 pandemic has shown that the future of multilateral threat management will hinge on steady yet flexible open-data publishing norms and multilateral data-transfer agreements. In many ways, India typifies the perspectives and needs of emerging economies related to data sharing, data flows, and related commercial regulation.

Turkey and multilateral institutions alike, including the European Union, were already struggling with political and economic crises in the years before the pandemic multiplied the sense of catastrophe. As they seek to pull themselves out of the depths of Covid-19, it is time to set aside the divisions that have long stalled progress for all of them, and seek recovery in cooperation and mutual benefit.

In a few days, US President Joe Biden will visit Europe for the first time. The opportunities for a new era of transatlantic cooperation are immense, but the window of opportunity to seize them is small.

The momentous African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which went into effect on Jan. 1, demonstrates the continent’s desire to carve its own economic destiny. But as Africa’s biggest trading partner, the European Union’s actions will have a strong impact on the project’s chances of success. The EU’s historical record suggests it would benefit from more serious listening to what its African partners want on trade.

Trade agreements have become an important battleground for tech companies to fight the regulatory pressure they are finally facing in the Global North. But allowing tech companies to capture digital trade talks to defang domestic regulation creates serious risks for privacy, fundamental rights, competition, social and economic justice, and sustainable development.

Recording of the event “Towards Secure, Sustainable, and Values-Based Supply Chains: A Transatlantic Conversation” on March 18, 2021

Rather than allowing itself to be dragged into Donald Trump’s destructive trade games, the European Union should turn them on their head, by introducing a CO2 levy, including border adjustment. Such a response would help protect the environment and boost the EU's own international clout.