Trade policy – Trade β Blog

Who put the boot into Canadian dairy and why?

When journalists don’t understand WTO work they jump to wrong conclusions. The questions Canada faced in the Agriculture Committee were not a geopolitical attack. They were more important than that

By Robert Wolfe and Peter Ungphakorn
POSTED JUNE 23, 2017 | UPDATED JUNE 24, 2017

Agriculture attachés from around the world may be surprised to learn that Vladimir Putin has taken an interest in their work in Geneva and is targeting Canada’s supply-managed dairy industry.

Or maybe they won’t as they realise a huge amount of journalistic licence has been injected into this account of a routine but important meeting at the World Trade Organization (WTO) on June 7 (The Globe and Mail, “Countries pile on in attack of Canada’s dairy regime”, June 18, 2017).

How seriously should we view G-20 words on resisting protectionism?

Every declaration by G20 leaders since 2012 has pledged to resist protectionism. Their record has not matched their rhetoric

By Peter Ungphakorn
POSTED AUGUST 31, 2016 | UPDATED SEPTEMBER 6, 2016

G-20 countries have increasingly introduced protectionist measures, according to a study released on the eve of the elite group’s summit in Hangzhou, China, September 4–5, 2016, by Simon Evenett and Johannes Fritz of St Gallen University in Switzerland.

Evenett’s and Fritz’s latest Global Trade Alert Report highlights the group’s poor record in combatting its members’ own protectionist tendencies, and particularly those of seven key economies, six of the G7 plus Australia. Continue reading “How seriously should we view G-20 words on resisting protectionism?”