Andrea Durkin is the Editor-in-Chief of TradeVistas and Founder of Sparkplug, LLC. Ms. Durkin previously served as a U.S. Government trade negotiator and has proudly taught international trade policy and negotiations for the last fifteen years as an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University’s Master of Science in Foreign Service program.
If shoppers are worried about the U.S.-China trade war, it’s not showing up yet in measures of their buying confidence or holiday retail sales. After more than a year of dueling tariffs, American and Chinese consumers are still filling their real and virtual shopping carts to the brim.
We long ago stopped having to make everything we need: forging tools, handcrafting shoes from hides and weaving textiles for clothing. The expansion of global trade is affording us the opportunity to rediscover and reinvent the art of “making” itself, which could in turn profoundly impact what we make and what we trade.
Responding to U.S. tariffs, China has imposed a 25 percent tariff on U.S. soybeans since July last year. The tariff has remained in place as leverage in the trade war – a proxy for whether China perceives progress is being made or not in the negotiations.
Pomegranates figure prominently every Jewish New Year. Thanks to trade we can enjoy them nearly all year-round. But in order to continue enjoying a variety of foods – and sustain basic crop production – growers must have access to a variety of high-quality seeds.
Simple in appearance, pleasantly sweet, nutritious, and nearly universal in appeal, that Cavendish bunch of bananas on your counter comes off as pretty unassuming. In reality, it has been through jungle wars and trade wars and now sits on the precipice of extinction. Growing to love more varieties could help save trade in bananas.
After a decade of steady increase, the volume of arms trade by 2012 had reached levels not seen since the end of the Cold War. Trade in conventional arms and dual-use goods and technologies is regulated through policies that include government defense procurement regulations, national export control licensing regimes and embargoes.
The political winds seem to be blowing in favor of a Congressional vote on the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Free Trade Agreement (USMCA) yet this fall. But before they vote, some Members of Congress want to talk over a few issues with the Trump administration’s negotiators. One is intellectual property protections for the U.S. biopharmaceutical industry. As important as it is, the issue of data protection for biologic drugs is not well understood.
The next generation of smarter and more powerful machines will rely on even more sophisticated semiconductors to achieve new capabilities. Pressure is on to “win” in the global chip race, which is why efforts to protect innovations in chipmaking are front and center in the current trade war – for better and for worse.
Foreign direct investment (FDI) is a vehicle for gaining entry into growth markets. In theory and in general, it’s a win-win. In practice and locally, it will depend on each deal. Global FDI flows have taken a dive, in part due to a souring investment climate and uncertainties in trade policies, but they are critical for growth in developing and developed markets alike.
For the United States and the global economy, tourism and travel are the unsung heroes of the international trade story. Tourism brings 80 million visitors to the United States every year and accounts for 10 percent of all U.S. exports. Globally, tourism is the third-largest sector in international trade. Above all, tourism and travel promote trade in international understanding and global goodwill.