Strategic Reglobalization: Great power rivalry comes for the multilateral trading system
Published 14 December 2022
This educational program, developed by The Association of Foreign Press Correspondents (AFPC-USA) in partnership with the Hinrich Foundation, provided foreign correspondents with the opportunity to learn from Dan Ikenson, Director of Policy Research at ndp | analytics, about the current trends in our multilateral trading system.
Daniel Ikenson unpacked the critical points of his latest research - Strategic Reglobalization: Great power rivalry comes for the multilateral trading system.
Watch this webinar for more insights on the future of trade in a new era of strategic reglobalization:
Ikenson noted that the underlying conditions upon which the rules-based trading system was founded – the existence of a single hegemonic power that considered the goals of freer trade and global economic integration as worthy because they were aligned with its foreign policy and broader security interests – have changed. Ikenson observed that the intense rivalry and growing distrust between the United States and China have given prominence and precedence to strategic considerations in both countries, permitting the proliferation of the view that the trade rules are too restrictive and, therefore, incompatible with both governments’ strategic objectives.
He identified the pandemic as an accelerant of concerns about national security vulnerabilities and intensifying calls for supply chain resilience, and suggested that diversification, not repatriation, is the answer to supply chain uncertainties. Ikenson lamented that “most-favored nation” and “national treatment,” both bedrock principles of nondiscrimination at the core of the multilateral, rules-based trading system, are likely to give ground to more discriminatory trading arrangements, such as “friend-shoring” and other closed, preferential trading blocs.
Guest speaker:
- Daniel Ikenson, Director of Policy Research, ndp | analytics
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