Trading Regimes

1
Trading Regimes

• Howse, From Politics to Technocracy and Back
  Again
• Bergsten, A Partnership of Equals

2
From GATT (1947) to WTO (1995)

• Basic principle generalized reciprocity (MFN)
• Focus on manufactured goods vs. new areas
  (services, agriculture, intellectual property)
• Weak institutionalization vs. real IO
• Weak trade dispute mechanism vs. binding
  arbitration
• Growing membership

3
Embedded liberalism vs. technocracy (Howse)

• Liberalism embedded in the values and
  institutions of the welfare state
• Technocracy/politics pragmatic pursuit of
  efficiency vs. balancing of values
• Policy prescriptions back to GATT global civil
  society WTO-WB-IMF-ILO commission

4
Controversial issues within the WTO (Doha round)

• Labor and environmental standards
• Agricultural subsidies
• Investment regime
• Intellectual property rights

5
A new partnership between the US and China
(Bergsten)?

• China is challenging existing norms, rules,
  institutional arrangements (IMF, WTO)
• China needs to become the third responsible
  pillar of the global economic system? Has an
  objective interest to do so?
• China has a preference for loose
  bilateral/regional agreements
• Need for a new strategic partnership (G-2)

6
Transformation of the existing global economic
order?

• The US should not cling to the status quo
• Cooperation with other states on specific issues
  provides a precedent for a broader strategic
  cooperation with China?
• Need to avert the break-up of the global economy
  into rival trading blocks
• Need to cooperate in response to global warming
  (China as the biggest polluter?)
• Common interests and developing trust more
  important than differences?