Category Archives: International trade

Blindsided: how coronavirus felled the global economy in 100 days

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A singular event has economists asking the same questions as everyone else: how far is there to fall – and can we ever get back?

It is New Year’s Eve 2019 and around the world stock markets are closing for business on a high note. Shares in the US are up by almost 30% on the year, those in Japan by 18%. Even in Britain, where the mood has been dampened by months of Brexit uncertainty, the FTSE 100 has risen by 12%.

Overall, it had been the best year for stocks since 2009 and traders saw no real reason why the party should not continue into 2020. The US and China looked close to an armistice in their trade war, the US central bank was stimulating the world’s biggest economy, and Boris Johnson’s decisive victory in the general election had removed any lingering doubts about whether Britain would leave the European Union.

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Will coronavirus trigger a global recession? | Jeffrey Frankel

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World economy’s prospects look bleak owing to Covid-19 outbreak and Donald Trump’s trade policy

At the start of this year, things seemed to be looking up for the global economy. True, growth had slowed a bit in 2019: from 2.9% to 2.3% in the US and from 3.6% to 2.9% globally. Still, there had been no recession and as recently as January, the International Monetary Fund projected a global growth rebound in 2020. The new coronavirus, Covid-19, has changed all of that.

Early predictions about Covid-19’s economic impact were reassuring. Similar epidemics – such as the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars), another China-born coronavirus – did little damage globally. At the country level, GDP growth took a hit but quickly bounced back, as consumers released pent-up demand and firms rushed to fill back orders and restock inventories.

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Japan’s economy heading for recession, and Germany wobbles

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International trade slump and coronavirus outbreak combine to weaken consumer demand

Japan’s economy is heading for a recession this year after figures showed the world’s third largest economy slumped by an annual rate of 6.3% during the last quarter of 2019.

Germany, the world’s fourth largest economy, is also expected to stumble as the coronavirus epidemic and a slump in trade with China combine with weak consumer demand to drag growth lower.

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Brexit: Britain and EU ‘will rip each other apart’ in trade talks

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French foreign minister says it will be hard for UK to strike deal by end of year given differences

Britain and the European Union are going to rip each other apart in talks over a future trade deal, the French foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, has predicted, while also holding out hope that UK defence co-operation with Europe will continue.

Speaking at the Munich security forum, he added it would be tough for Britain to achieve its aim of a free trade deal by the end of the year given the differences between the two sides.

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Trump signs China trade pact and boasts of ‘the biggest deal ever seen’

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President signs first phase of new agreement with China, hours after Democrats named team that will prosecute him in Senate

Donald Trump has signed the first phase of a new trade agreement with China after two years of tension between the two superpowers that have rattled economies around the world.

Related: Trump vaunts his China trade pact – but some say it’s too little, too late

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Easing trade tensions fuel pre-Christmas shares rally

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Donald Trump promises that a US-China trade pact will be signed ‘very shortly’

A pre-Christmas rally fuelled by hopes of waning trade tensions have pushed share prices to a fresh high and on course for their biggest rise in a decade.

Donald Trump’s promise that a US-China trade pact would be signed “very shortly” sent the MSCI gauge of stock markets around the world to new record levels.

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China confirms ‘phase one’ trade deal with US

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  • Beijing says deal includes rollback of tariffs in phases
  • Trump hails ‘amazing deal for all’

China and the US have reached an initial deal to resolve a bruising trade war between the two countries, according to statements from both sides.

China’s vice-commerce minister Wang Shouwen said in a late night briefing on Friday that the US had agreed to cancel some of its existing tariffs on Chinese goods, while Donald Trump tweeted that the two countries had agreed to a “very large Phase One Deal”.

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US reaches ‘deal in principle’ with China to end trade war

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  • White House expected to announce accord later on Thursday
  • US offered to halt new tariffs and up to 50% cuts on existing ones

The White House has reached a “deal in principle” with Beijing to resolve the 17-month US-China trade war, according to a source briefed on the trade talks.

The White House was expected to make an announcement later on Thursday, the source said.

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WTO faces crisis over settlement disputes unless Trump backs off

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Ability to police global trade could be neutered by battle to safeguard US sovereignty

The World Trade Organization is set to plunge into the biggest crisis in its 25-year history later this week as the climax to a long-running and bitter dispute means the Geneva-based body will cease to be able to settle disputes between its member states.

Unless Donald Trump backs off at the last minute and agrees to a peace plan, Washington’s protracted battle to safeguard US sovereignty will lead to the neutering of the WTO’s ability to police global trade.

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Trump denies interest in NHS even if it was handed to US ‘on a silver platter’ – video

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Donald Trump has said he would not be interested in putting Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) on the table during trade talks with the UK even if it was ‘handed on a silver platter’.

Trump, who is in London for a Nato summit, said: ‘We have absolutely nothing to do with [the NHS], and we wouldn’t want to. If you handed it to us on a silver platter, we’d want nothing to do with it’

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Paul Keating’s speech on Australia’s China policy – full text | Paul Keating

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Australia can’t go on downplaying the largest economic shift in world history. Read the former PM’s speech in full

Taking some longer view of the strategic scenery, I have come to some key beliefs about the changes that are taking place globally.

The international system is fundamentally anarchic in structure. Two world wars in a century and Vietnam, Iraq, Syria gives the evidence of that. We should not confuse the relative peace of the last 30 years with the anarchy which lies latent.

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World’s largest trade deal RCEP faces delay as India pushes back against China

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Sixteen-nation Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership will cover half the planet’s people

The world’s largest trade deal is unlikely to be signed this year, with a draft statement from south-east Asian leaders suggesting it will be delayed until 2020, despite China’s desire to bring it into operation as soon as possible as a counterweight to its debilitating tariff war with the US.

The 16-country Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership – known as the RCEP – would be the world’s largest when operational, spanning India to New Zealand, including 30% of global GDP and half of the world’s people.

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US delays China tariff increase as Trump claims ‘substantial’ deal

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  • US had planned to raise tariffs on $250bn of goods to 30%
  • Trump: ‘All would like to see something significant happen!’

Donald Trump announced a “very substantial phase one deal” to solve the long-running trade dispute with China.

After a two-day meeting in Washington between US and Chinese officials on Friday Trump announced a delay on plans to raise tariffs on $250bn worth of goods to 30% on 15 October.

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Former world leaders warn US-China trade dispute could lead to new cold war

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Kevin Rudd is among a coalition of former leaders who have urged the US and China to settle their differences

The ongoing trade war between the US and China, with its associated decoupling of the two powerhouse economies, was a step in the direction of a new cold war, a coalition of former world leaders has warned.

Writing on behalf of the global leadership foundation in an opinion piece published in the New York Times overnight, former prime ministers Kevin Rudd of Australia, Helen Clark of New Zealand and Carl Bildt of Sweden have urged presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping to end their trade dispute for the sake of the world at large.

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PM urged to confront Trump over US tariffs on scotch whisky

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MPs say thousands of jobs, many in rural Scotland, could be at risk from planned 25% tax

MPs are calling on Boris Johnson to intervene directly with Donald Trump to prevent the US imposing punitive tariffs of 25% on imported scotch whisky later this month.

The US announced last week that scotch would be among a range of European goods subject to hefty import taxes from 18 October, as it hits back against the EU in the long-running trade dispute over subsidies for Airbus.

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Trump’s trade tactics imperil the jobs of those who might vote for his second term

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The only tool he has to placate US consumers is successive interest rate cuts – but the whole world is playing at that game

Donald Trump’s cunning plan to make America great again by launching a trade war with China has officially backfired. Last week, a keenly watched measure of US manufacturing showed firms cutting back on production and jobs at a rate not seen since 2009. Recession warning lights are flashing and the outlook seems a world away from the cheery one presented by the president when he entered the White House in 2017.

It is quite something for a president to impose a trade policy that weighs heavily on parts of a crucial sector for the US economy – and it’s a bizarre tactic given that the votes of manufacturing workers delivered him his first term in office.

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‘Tone deaf’ ads use slave ship images to promote UK sea-going sector

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Campaign accused of ignoring colonial abuses when setting out maritime industries’ future

Historians and academics have labelled a new government campaign “tone deaf” and “historically illiterate” for using images of ships used for slavery and colonisation to promote Britain’s maritime sector.

The UK has a long history with commercial shipping, reaching as far back as 1700 ⚓️
 
Our #Maritime2050 plan maps out the next 30 years of innovation. Find out more https://t.co/VqYPNw300C #LISW19 pic.twitter.com/0Olw3gk2F8

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Trump’s trade war with China creates unexpected winner: Canada’s lobster industry

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Prices are at record levels and demand is growing for fishermen north of the border after China imposed tariffs on live lobsters

Long hours, rolling ocean swells, and the occasional spring snowstorm are all part of the job for Francis Morrissey.

“It’s bred into you from the time you’re a child: you either like the ocean or you don’t,” said the fisherman and business owner from the Canadian province of Prince Edward Island. “Even when I’m in the office, I wish I was out there.”

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US and China begin imposing new tariffs as trade war escalates

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Chinese exports worth $125bn will face new taxes from 1 September, while China places levy on oil as agreement becomes more distant

China and the United States have begun imposing additional tariffs on each other’s goods in the latest escalation of their bruising trade war that has sent shockwaves through the global economy.

A new round of tariffs took effect from 0401 GMT on Sunday, with Beijing’s levy of 5% on US crude oil marking the first time the fuel has been targeted since the world’s two largest economies started their trade war more than a year ago.

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‘Sure. Why not?’: Trump admits to second thoughts on China trade war – video

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Donald Trump has admitted he may rethink his deepening trade war with China after criticism from fellow world leaders at the G7 summit in Biarritz. Asked at a working breakfast with Boris Johnson if he had had second thoughts about the standoff, the president replied: 'Yeah, sure. Why not? … I have second thoughts about everything'

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