The Law of Intended Consequences

by | Oct 18, 2018 | Trade Working Blog

Remove

Not content with threatening to impose tariffs on all of China’s exports to the United States, the Trump Administration has included a provision in the new NAFTA agreement which makes clear its unhappiness with others doing trade deals with China. While the provision does not make a substantive difference to the legal niceties of the agreement, its signalling is clear – with some disturbing implications for future Asia-Pacific economic architecture of interest to New Zealand.

One of the additions to the renegotiated North American Free Trade Agreement (stodgily renamed – in a marketer’s nightmare – the “USMCA”, or United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement) is a provision that obliges a member to consult the others if it intends to negotiate with a “non-market economy”. The other members will have the chance to form their own bilateral agreement in place of USMCA. This is aimed squarely at China, whose status as a “market economy” has long been a bone of contention for the US (and European Union) in the WTO.

Substantively, the “poison pill” (in the words of Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross) will make little difference. Under the old NAFTA arrangements any party could withdraw from the agreement for any reason with six months’ notice; technically this amounts to much the same thing. But the signalling to trading partners is crystal clear – and the US has just announced it intends to negotiate new FTAs with the EU, United Kingdom and Japan.  China will of course be considering its own positioning too.

The move is consistent with the rest of President Trump’s approach to trade, which is fixated on China – first with the steel and aluminium tariffs (although these had little impact, since China’s SOE-produced steel had already been largely excluded from the US market by anti-dumping and countervailing duties); then with the ‘Section 301’ measures aimed at China’s industrial policy and intellectual property approach, which have seen the US impose or threaten tariffs on all imports from China. The US has also taken steps to tighten foreign investment rules.

The US was a supporter of China’s 2001 accession to the WTO, advocating for its inclusion in the global trade system at least in part to encourage a move away from the “socialist market economy”. And of course global value chains, where production is integrated across multiple geographies, and which have driven the design of modern FTAs, have opened up vast new opportunities for the United States as well as emerging economies. Deeper global economic integration has been a polestar for New Zealand trade policy since the Second World War. But the times they are a-changin’.

The US approach has worrying implications for the Asia-Pacific’s regional architecture. Since 2014, when (ironically) China was in the Chair, APEC has championed the idea of a ‘Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific’; FTAAP has the potential to give new stimulus to inclusive and sustainable development in the region and to grow trade opportunities for New Zealand among others. While the FTAAP concept is for a free trade “area” not an “agreement” as such, US enthusiasm for that vision must, at the least, be in question.

Similarly, during recent discussions as part of an Asia New Zealand Foundation Track II visit to China, Chinese thinktanks were receptive to the idea that China might eventually join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership; membership of CPTPP could provide helpful impetus for further domestic reform – an approach that regional neighbour Viet Nam has embraced to its benefit over recent years. But of course Canada, Mexico and Japan are a part of the CPTPP agreement and may be reluctant to welcome China given the USMCA signalling.

It is incumbent on all of us to shore up the global rules-based trading system, resist normalising overt discrimination and do what we can to help lower the current tensions. At the very least, trade relationships based on big-power politics, in a world where the first and second largest economies in the world are at odds, are likely to cause some middle-of-the-night existential soul-searching for small states. Isolationism and picking sides sit very uncomfortably in our globalised world.

This post was prepared by NZIBF Associate Director Stephanie Honey. 

REGISTER WITH TRADE WORKS

Register to stay up to date with latest news, as well as saving and discussing articles you’re interested in.

 

Remove

 

Latest News

TIES THAT BIND – EXPANDING CER TO ASEAN

For New Zealand to pay more attention to the economies of ASEAN (the ten-member Association of South East Asian nations) makes sense, particularly at a time when doing business around the world is tough and when we need all of our international connections to deliver...

SPOTLIGHT ON SUBSIDIES

With much of the world turning inwards and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in a parlous state, it could be tempting to relax New Zealand’s long-term struggle to rid the world of trade-distorting, environmentally harmful and financially wasteful subsidies.  Not...

Address to NZ Apples and Pears Inc Conference, 30 July

GEO-POLITICAL, TRADE AND CONSUMER UPDATE Stephen Jacobi, Executive Director, NZ International Business Forum Introduction Thanks to the team at NZ Apples and Pears for the invitation to be with you today. I’m here to talk about the bigger picture against which your...

NON TARIFF BARRIERS – “YOU ARE NOT ALONE”

Non- tariff barriers (NTBS) have a pernicious effect on trade.  Sometimes it seems that just as tariffs go down, an NTB springs up!  They can be hard to identify and even harder to address.  The red meat industry, New Zealand’s second largest export...

Business Forum welcomes UAE FTA negotiations

Media release, 7 May 2024 The NZ International Business Forum (NZIBF) welcomes the start of formal negotiations on the New Zealand/UAE Closer Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) and looks forward to steady progress that will lead to the securing of a comprehensive...

Doubling our exports with zeros…and ones!

Image credit: Gerd Altmann, Pixabay The development of written language in the ancient world didn’t start with great poetry or literary epics. The catalyst for writing was the need to record the transfer of the ownership of goods from one person to another. Scribes...

NEW TEAM FOR AUSTRALIA NEW ZEALAND LEADERSHIP FORUM

Media release, 2 April 2024 The New Zealand Co-Chair of the Australia New Zealand Leadership Forum (ANZLF), Greg Lowe, welcomes the appointment of Stephen Jacobi and Simon Le Quesne to the New Zealand arm of the ANZLF Secretariat. The ANZLF brings business leaders,...