September 2020 – Covid 19 – Sharp drop in global GDP.
World trade is back to middle last century’s level. Demand for goods has suffered a drastical contraction. Tourist services almost disappeared.
This moment was preceded by a resurgence of global protectionism trending and a strong trade dispute between the United States and China. The Director of the WTO resigns before the end of his term.
Movement of people and goods is restricted. The expansion of e-commerce is skyrocketing. Which Customs Administration can control and / or record this immense flow of “ant trade”? Taxes or Tariffs?
The predicted disappearance of known jobs has arrived abruptly, and new jobs emerge in the context of a pandemic. Will they be enough for everybody? Are all nations ready fo this scenario? And the societies? And the people?
Agreements closed at WTO in 1995 seem to creak in the see of a different kind of reality. Trade agreements of the last century might be no longer valid. The commitments had been arranged in a different economic, health and technological scenario.
But as the song says, some things never change: Countries are going to need to employ their citizens, to obtain foreign exchange to finance their recovery, and to win elections.
It is to be expected that dumping practices will return to the fore, but accompanying renewed practices, accurate to modern times: social dumping, environmental dumping, technological dumping.
Welcome to Dumping Experts blog, another kind of look over the world trade.
Maria Jose Etulain
Director