Prompted by geo-strategic rivalry and the war in Ukraine, COVID-19 and the climate transition, trade policy is increasingly being weaponized. This trend towards protectionist capture and retaliation is self-sabotaging and bad for growth. But there is another way.
In this hard hitting book, Ken Heydon offers alternatives to the trade weapon: the need for diplomatic carrots to accompany the sanctions stick; for resilience in supply chains, not self sufficiency through ill-advised reshoring and friendshoring; for multilateral, WTO, remedies to rule breaking, not unilateral penalties in the name of national sovereignty; and for direct action on environment and public health goals, not the blunt tool of trade restriction.
But to restrain the damaging subordination of trade policy to other ends governments must address the discontents of trade and do better at helping losers, adjusting to technological change and making the case for open markets. At stake are three decades of income gains from globalisation and the ability to deal effectively with the climate transition and the next pandemic.