Speaker: Uri Dadush (Research Professor, School of Public Policy, UMD)
Discussant: Robert Koopman (Hurst Senior Professorial Lecturer, American University
Abstract: The rapid expansion of international trade since World War II has enabled an unprecedented advance in prosperity and poverty reduction. This trade depends crucially on rules, and the rules are now under threat from a combination of geopolitical tensions, social divisions and divergent approaches to the climate crisis. Yet, despite many instances of protectionism and flouting of the rules, international trade and global supply chains have remained remarkably resilient -so far. It is not too late to salvage the system. To do so, an essential condition is for the US and China to find an accommodation on trade. Such an accommodation is possible but not certain. Nations must find ways to preserve the system while preparing for the possibility that trade will fragment into hostile groupings which are themselves internally divided.