Our writers outline what is at stake for those around the world likely to be immediately affected by Donald Trump’s presidency
Syrian opposition left with nowhere to turn after Trump’s victory
Continue reading...Mapping the Trump factor: 10 countries and regions feeling the heat
↧
↧
Twenty reasons why Brexit will be even trickier than we thought
From the wrong kind of fish off our coasts, to divorcees stuck in marital limbo, Britain’s painful extraction from the EU will send shockwaves through almost every part of our lives. Here are just some of the side-effects...
After he took the role of international trade secretary, Fox boasted that he would have “about a dozen free trade deals outside the EU” ready for when Britain left. But it is illegal for Britain, as an EU member state, to negotiate bilateral trade deals. Fox later quietly backtracked on his promise. No one knows what he’s doing with his time at the moment.
Related: Holidays, equal pay – Brexit threatens these rights. We are fighting to keep them | Jason Moyer Lee
Continue reading...↧
As a trade negotiator, I’m shocked at Brexiters’ ignorance | Jason Langrish
A Canadian trade expert has no illusions about the complexities we face
The British government continues to plod along without a Brexit strategy with the deadline for invoking article 50 fast approaching. Sir Ivan Rogers, head of the British representation in Brussels, recently conceded as much in what has become a public resignation. “We do not yet know what the government will set as negotiating objectives for the UK’s relationship with the EU after exit,” Rogers wrote to staff as he departed.
Related: UK at risk of Brexit ‘catastrophe’ warns Canadian trade expert
Related: EU and Canada sign Ceta free trade deal
Related: The 'Canadian model': why Ceta isn't a blueprint for Brexit
Continue reading...↧
UK risks 'disorderly crash landing' on Brexit, business leaders warn
CBI director general urges politicians to wake up to limitations of WTO terms and dangers of a sudden exit from EU
Britain risks a “disorderly crash landing” if it assumes it can safely walk away from troublesome Brexit talks, business leaders have said, in a last-ditch plea for a negotiated settlement with Europe.
As Theresa May prepares to reveal an uncompromising set of UK objectives on Tuesday, pressure is mounting on the prime minister to take a firm line with other member states and ultimately fall back on World Trade Organisation tariffs if no deal can be agreed.
Related: Hard or soft Brexit? Theresa May can have both | Matthew d’Ancona
Continue reading...↧
The devil is in the detail of post-Brexit trade deals | Letters
As many people suspected, and as is becoming more and more obvious, the UK, with its sweatshop economy, weak productivity and huge trade deficit, is going to find itself in very chilly waters after we leave the EU (‘Unsettled’ Brexit will hit UK growth, 17 January). If we succeed in making trade treaties they will mostly be on very unfavourable terms, as we will be on the weak side in most cases (especially with China, the US and the EU). It also becomes more and more obvious that in order to achieve even unfavourable terms we will have to submit to being dominated by big international companies, which will lead to the reintroduction of TTIP-style disputes procedures, a bonfire of labour and environmental protections and policies only acceptable to the hard right of the Conservative party. Brexit is wrong and dangerous: the only way forward is to reverse it.
Jeremy Cushing
Exeter
• I read with distress your article (Brexit rush for US trade deal could force tough concessions, say critics, theguardian.com, 16 January). I found the comments of the UK’s ambassador to Washington staggering. For such a senior official to imply that farming is a low priority is worrying. Theresa May said on Tuesday that no trade deal is better than a bad trade deal. It is clear to me that a deal that fundamentally damages a country’s ability to feed an urbanised population through short, secure, local supply chains should be firmly categorised as a truly bad deal and one the government should avoid at all costs.
Continue reading...↧
↧
Globalisation once made the world go around. Is it about to grind to a halt?
The denizens of Davos reassured themselves that free trade would go on in the Trump era, but they had for years done little about the losers such a system creates
His speech was like one normally expected of an American president. Countries must resist the temptation to retreat into harbour, the world leader said to a packed and admiring audience, but instead have the courage to swim in the vast ocean of the global market.
This was the kind of paean to free trade that might have come from John F Kennedy, George W Bush or Bill Clinton – all occupants of the White House who saw it as the United States’s role to defend the open international trading system set up at the end of the second world war.
Related: Middle classes in crisis, IMF's Christine Lagarde tells Davos 2017
Continue reading...↧
Cross-party group of MPs plots to halt hard Brexit plans
MPs say Theresa May has no authority to pursue ‘extreme’ options for UK’s departure from Europe
A powerful cross-party group of MPs is plotting to thwart Theresa May’s attempts to drive through a hard Brexit amid rising fears that UK businesses could soon have to pay huge export tariffs on goods they sell to the EU.
Related: May’s speech sounded like Trump. The only thing missing was the wall | Dan Roberts
Related: UK risks 'disorderly crash landing' on Brexit, business leaders warn
Continue reading...↧
Trump's changed stance on Nato, will he sober up about IMF and WTO? | Barry Eichengreen
A reality check may force the US president to climb down on his ‘America first’ rhetoric and see the merit of international bodies
Donald Trump did not assume the US presidency as a committed multilateralist. On that, partisans of all political persuasions can agree. Among his most controversial campaign statements were some suggesting that Nato was obsolete, a position that bodes ill for his attitude to other multilateral organisations and alliances.
Last week, however, Trump stepped back, reassuring an audience at US Central Command in Tampa, Florida (the headquarters for US forces that operate in the Middle East). “We strongly support Nato,” he declared, explaining that his “issue” with the alliance was one of full and proper financial contributions from all members, not fundamental security arrangements.
Continue reading...↧
'No deal' Brexit would mean £6bn in extra costs for UK exporters
Guardian analysis shows falling back on WTO rules would mean steep bills for industries including fashion, agriculture, cars and ceramics
Crashing out of the European Union without a trade deal would saddle British exporters with more than £6bn a year of extra costs, according to analysis that reveals the limited options facing UK negotiators just weeks before Brexit talks start.
Theresa May has insisted “no deal is better than a bad deal” when it comes to the terms of Britain’s departure from the EU, suggesting the prime minister believes falling back on World Trade Organisation rules is a credible alternative if she cannot get her preferred option of a new free trade agreement with the EU.
Continue reading...↧
↧
How difficult, and how costly, is a hard Brexit?
Leaving the EU without a deal and falling back on WTO rules would mean paying customs duties on British exports to the EU. Guardian calculations put the annual bill at $7.6bn just in tariff costs. Here’s why
Continue reading...↧
Trading off costs and benefits of Brexit and the EU | Letters
Rafael Behr (The ‘left behind’ cliche is an excuse for political failure, 22 February) needs to go beyond castigating the complacency of the major parties with regard to their “safe” constituencies and voters. Yes, we do need to listen – but to which voices? There is a cacophony of reasons why people voted Brexit: poor job opportunities, ever weakening health provision, unaffordable housing, loss of sovereignty; no single cluster of these represents “the” reason why Brexit received a narrow plus vote last June. However, the main cause of these issues – as well as of many misplaced concerns about immigration – is the overly commercial/economic approach to globalisation that has driven financial growth above social benefit. Since the 2008 financial crisis, absolute standards of living for many people around the world have declined, and the disparity of reward between ordinary working people and those at the top of the economic tree has grown exponentially; and this was a key factor why voters in the referendum did not play according to the “rules” of politics.
But globalisation need not be solely about trade and profit for the few. The cultural benefits are vast and rarely spelt out: travel and a growth in knowledge about different parts of the world; intercultural communication and thus increased international understanding; access to new and stimulating ideas, beliefs, and practices; rapid movement of innovations. And above all, simply coming to know people from around the world, making more and more of the globe a source of friends rather than competition. Listening on its own is not enough – we need to make our global society more human-focused.
Paul Griseri
La Genétouze, Charente-Maritime, France
↧
MPs slam Theresa May over lack of a plan if Brexit talks collapse
PM plans to trigger article 50 ‘within days’ but all-party parliamentary committee says she is putting national interest at risk
Theresa May has been accused by a powerful parliamentary committee of putting the national interest at risk by failing to prepare for the “real prospect” that two years of Brexit negotiations could end with no deal.
The criticism – and warnings of dire consequences – is levelled at May by the all-party foreign affairs select committee only days before she is expected to trigger article 50 – the formal process that will end the UK’s 44-year membership of the European Union.
Related: Brexiters and Remainers both fail to grasp the challenges facing Britain | Tom Kibasi
Related: Labour MPs demand Corbyn backs fight to stay in single market
Related: Arguments against single market membership illustrate a lack of ambition
Continue reading...↧
Brexit Britain is suddenly debating trade – but it's the wrong talking point | Larry Elliott
Brexit and article 50 has us all talking tariffs and quotas, but it is the less obvious stuff such as EU standards that will be decisive
Brexit has turned Britain into a nation of trade nerds. In the past nine months, trade has gone from being too boring to mention into a subject about which everybody has a view. Those who eyes would once have glazed over at the mention of bound tariffs or trade facilitation agreements can now wax lyrical about what it would mean for Britain if it had to rely on World Trade Organistion rules after it leaves the EU.
The new sexiness of trade was illustrated last week when the former head of the WTO made a speech at the Institute for Government in London. Pascal Lamy spent some of the best years of his life struggling to polish off the Doha round of trade liberalisation and an overspill room was needed to hear what he had to say about Britain’s likely post-Brexit deal.
Related: UK at risk of Brexit ‘catastrophe’ warns Canadian trade expert
Continue reading...↧
↧
Pro-Brexit ministers 'relaxed about leaving EU without trade deal'
Tory tensions as some MPs say they face battle against ‘bonkers’ Eurosceptics actively promoting WTO terms
Brexiters in the cabinet and other Conservative frontbenchers have privately told colleagues they are relaxed about the prospect of Britain crashing out of the EU on to World Trade Organisation rules, the Guardian understands.
Senior figures within the party have been persuaded by the argument that members of the WTO are less likely to try to punish the UK, while the European Union is looking to exact a political price for Brexit.
Continue reading...↧
India isn’t buying Britain’s trade charm offensive. We should take the hint | Vince Cable
The government is ardently pursuing bilateral deals with the subcontinent and other non-EU countries – but why not just do business with our neighbours?
I still recall the stinging rebuffs I received as a teenager pursuing some beautiful young woman with whom I was besotted: “Can’t you take a hint?” The British government is similarly failing to take the hint that the Indian authorities are not going to succumb to ardent wooing for a bilateral trade deal. A few months ago Theresa May was despatched from Delhi in a rather humiliating manner, and either the message has not yet reached the Treasury or the PM wants to see her chancellor sent packing in a similar way.
Throughout the coalition government, great efforts were made to open up the Indian market to British exports and, at the same time, to secure an EU-India trade agreement similar to the one negotiated with Korea. In his first major overseas visit, David Cameron took me, several other cabinet ministers and a trade delegation. I went four times in all. The Indians were unfailingly polite and perhaps flattered by the attention. But British exports remained a pathetically small share of Indian imports.
Related: UK visa policy for India could gamble away much-needed goodwill
The Home Office message to India that “we want your money but don’t want your people” was not a great pitch.
Continue reading...↧
America owes China $1tn. That’s a problem for Beijing, and Trump knows it
The leaders shared steak in Florida, but the stakes in trade talks are much higher for China, which would struggle to find a better export market
Forget the warm handshake. Take with a pinch of salt Donald Trump’s talk of his “very, very, great relationship” with Xi Jinping. The idea that Washington has ceased to harbour deep suspicions of Beijing just because the presidents of the world’s two biggest economies shared pleasantries over steak in Florida is fanciful.
Xi will certainly be hoping Trump’s cordial welcome was for real, because China has much more to lose economically from a trade war than America does. This might sound counter-intuitive given that Beijing can deploy the economic nuclear option if Trump makes good on his campaign pledge to slap whopping tariffs on Chinese imports. The US owes China more than $1 trillion and Xi could send America’s economy into a tailspin by sanctioning a dumping of US Treasury bonds.
↧
Free trade warning – IMF, WTO and World Bank say it must be defended
Fears about Donald Trump’s protectionist rhetoric prompt joint defence of open markets with admission that more help for those ‘left behind’ is needed
Fears that Donald Trump’s arrival in the White House is threatening a new era of protectionism have prompted a joint defence of trade from the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation.
Warning that the role of trade in the global economy was at a critical juncture, the three multilateral bodies said the opening up of markets had been good for growth but admitted that action was needed to help “left behind” individuals and communities.
Related: Global productivity slowdown risks creating instability, warns IMF
Continue reading...↧
↧
Is this the beginning of the end for neoliberalism? | Letters
Your editorial on the French elections (11 April), with its encouraging mention of the rise of the higher tax and spend candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, failed to mention possibly his biggest electoral draw: the fact that he is a leftwing protectionist. Prior to the 2012 election, polls showed that over 80% of French across the political spectrum thought that free trade had a negative impact on employment. So it’s not just immigration that is fuelling ever-broadening support for Marine Le Pen, it is also the fact that she too is an overt protectionist.
These trends have obviously not been lost on the unholy trinity of free trade pushers the IMF, WTO, and the World Bank (Report, 11 April). Having forced nations across the world to accept their open-borders, export-led growth mantra they are now busy crying crocodile tears for the “left behind”, the inevitable result of their policies. They still rail against protectionism, despite the fact that if it has a progressive end goal, it could enhance the economic and social conditions of the globally disadvantaged.
Continue reading...↧
Tobacco industry suffers defeat as WTO upholds Australia's plain packaging laws
Formal ruling by World Trade Organisation not expected until July, but confidential draft defends laws as legitimate public health measures
Australia’s laws on plain packaging of cigarettes and other tobacco products have been upheld at the World Trade Organisation after a five-year legal battle, Bloomberg news reported on Thursday.
The news is a blow to the tobacco industry as such a ruling from the WTO has been widely anticipated as giving a green light for other countries to roll out similar laws.
Related: Plain cigarette packaging could drive 300,000 Britons to quit smoking
Related: How tobacco firms flout UK law on plain packaging
Continue reading...↧
Carmakers call for interim Brexit deal or risk falling off 'cliff edge'
Sector warns of permanent damage unless UK can secure transitional deal maintaining access to single market and customs union
Carmakers have called on ministers to keep the UK in the EU single market and customs union for at least five years or risk permanent damage to the industry.
The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders told the government on Tuesday it was time to be pragmatic and honest about what could be achieved and secure an interim agreement in Brexit negotiations. Otherwise Britain could face a “cliff-edge” in 20 months that would be the “worst foreseeable outcome for the sector” and possibly mean tariffs.
Continue reading...↧
More Pages to Explore .....
