Wither the Trade Regime?

Abstract

Democratic governance, liberal values, and the open trading regime are facing interconnected existential challenges. For most of the post-WWII period, they were “legs to the same stool.” Today, the connections among the three have frayed, and this has implications for the future of the liberal international economic order. While the trade regime successfully incorporated smaller autocratic states, the rise of China and increasing tension among signatories to the WTO has challenged the rule-based trading system. This essay argues that even with these divisions among the memberships, all trading nations, including China, need the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)/WTO. Trade requires market predictability; exporters and their home governments require some means to adjudicate conflict. The GATT/WTO remains the best, and perhaps the only, organization that can facilitate such coordination and finesse the changing nature of the international system to assure an open world economy.

Does Renewable Energy Transition in the USA and China Overcome Environmental Degradation?

“…The global take the energy crisis and climate change as serious issues to overcome, especially in countries with large populations like China and the USA. Both countries hold the record as the highest CO 2 emissions (Wu et al, 2022) and as having the major role in global manufacturing (Goldstein, 2022). Most countries also depend on China and the USA to gain the economic scale, meaning both countries are strongly oriented with the heavy industries.…”