Author Archives: pwg

Supply management has no place in the TPP

It would be mad­ness for Aus­tralia to agree to admit Canada to the TPP “free trade” nego­ti­a­tions on the basis that they might keep their astro­nom­i­cally high bar­ri­ers to some food imports. The Cana­dian Trade Min­is­ter, Ed Fast, told reporters this week that he believes Canada has “pub­lic sup­port” from six of the nine coun­tries …

April 18, 2012 – 8:20 am | By pwg | Posted in Trade | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Governed by the gutless?

Alan Beattie’s new book­let “Who’s in Charge Here” (Ama­zon) is an amus­ing, accu­rate, acces­si­ble account of the cur­rent mess in global finan­cial and trade “gov­er­nance.” Well worth the $3 price. But he draws a “les­son” from his lit­tle his­tory of the crises of 2008–2011 that I find un-satisfying. Who’s in Charge Here is a valu­able …

March 14, 2012 – 2:07 pm | By pwg | Posted in Foreign policy, Ideas, Trade | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Nothing to see here

Is there any point in con­tin­u­ing to puz­zle over trade pol­icy and agree­ments? Do they really make any dif­fer­ence to any­thing? It seems they’ve become too hard to put together; but does that mat­ter? Since about 2001, I’ve been writ­ing a weblog analysing inter­na­tional trade agree­ments, national trade poli­cies and the post-WWII “sys­tem” of gov­ern­ment …

February 16, 2012 – 1:27 pm | By pwg | Posted in Policy, Trade | Tagged , , , | Comments (2)

“Critical Mass” on US business agenda

The US National For­eign Trade Coun­cil has released a short paper (PDF file) endors­ing a “crit­i­cal mass” (CM) approach to new WTO-associated trade agree­ments, with­out, how­ever, pro­duc­ing any new ideas on how to accom­plish this in the cur­rent mul­ti­lat­eral trade frame­work. A top U.S. busi­ness group, frus­trated with years of stale­mate in world trade talks, …

February 10, 2012 – 10:27 am | By pwg | Posted in Trade | Tagged , , , , | Comments (2)

Evidence-free policy on cars

His Tel­stra term has appar­ently left Ziggy Switkowski with a taste for Gaullist illogic. He reck­ons that the absence of a ratio­nale — other than rent-seeking — is not fatal to a pol­icy that sup­ports a “diverse” indus­trial pat­ri­moine. It is very hard to make a con­ven­tional busi­ness case for sub­sidi­s­a­tion of (or, more fash­ion­ably, …

February 9, 2012 – 6:33 am | By pwg | Posted in Public policy | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

No spring for shiite Syria

Robert Fisk’s unsen­ti­men­tal analy­sis of Assad’s strengths As long as Syria can trade with Iraq, it can trade with Iran and, of course, it can trade with Lebanon. The Shia of Iran and the Shia major­ity in Iraq and the Shia lead­er­ship (though not major­ity) in Syria and the Shia (the largest com­mu­nity, but not …

February 7, 2012 – 8:05 pm | By pwg | Posted in Countries, Foreign policy | Tagged | Comments (0)

Davos dribbles

What a world of blather, the Davos meet­ing must be. The cor­po­rate chat­ter­ing classes titi­lat­ing them­selves with scary, fuzzy, big-picture booga­loo. Clever talk and a few good din­ners mus­ing about issues they guess are com­plex, loom­ing, and some­one else’s prob­lem (tomor­row) must con­sole them for the rest of the year when they have to deal …

January 27, 2012 – 7:51 am | By pwg | Posted in Public policy | Tagged , | Comments (0)