Friend-shoring risks drifting into a costly snow job

By Robert Wolfe*
POSTED JUNE 17, 2023 | UPDATED JUNE 17, 2023

One of the hottest topics in trade right now is the meaning of “security”, particularly as a broad set of exceptions to the international rules that normally constrain policy. It also pops up in another hot topic: how to handle environmental issues such as taxing carbon content, and subsidising favoured environmentally-friendly products.

This can be summed up in a question: have free trade and secure trade become conflicting aims?

The debate hit the headlines under the Trump administration in the US when “security” was used to justify raising trade barriers and providing subsidies to favoured sectors such as steel and agriculture. It seemed any economic setback, from having to import strategic materials to loss of export markets, could be seen as a security issue.

A ‘snow job’ is an attempt to persuade someone that something is good or true when it is not

The Biden administration has rephrased the objective: it’s now “worker-centred”. But the policies have not changed much.

One aspect of this is to try to shift supply chains back home, or failing that to favour off-shore chains in “friendly” countries — “friend-shoring”.

Does the WTO require countries to control their borders?

By Peter Ungphakorn
POSTED JULY 18, 2018 | UPDATED JULY 19, 2018

On Monday (July 16), MP Anna Soubry launched a vigorous attack in the House of Commons against hard-line Brexiters. There was a lot of truth in what she said, except on one point.

She turned to the likelihood that if the UK simply trades with the EU on WTO terms, and without an adequate form of free trade agreement, it will have to impose border controls on trade between the Republic of Ireland and the North.

WTO “rules say every member must secure their borders,” she said.

It’s a commonly-held view.