26/6/20: Trade Restrictions: European Companies

BOFIT newsletter out today highlights the scale of restrictive trade measures applicable to the EU exporters across a number of significant markets:

Of eleven countries included, three managed to lower trade and investment barriers applying to the EU companies over 2017-2019 period, two countries had unchanged barriers, and six showed increasing barriers to trade and investment. In a way, this reflects a shift away from trade and investment globalization focus on the last three decades toward more regionalized and even protectionist policies.

COVID19 pandemic is likely to accelerate this trend.

24/9/15: The Ugly Faces of Trade Protectionism

Neat chart from Credit Suisse summarising the extent (and distribution) of new protectionist policies across several key economies:

Several points worth making:

• The obvious one: the U.S. leads in terms of protectionism. Which is ironic, given the U.S. championship of open trade agreements (TTIP and TPP being the most current ones) and the U.S. tendency to de-alienate the world into 'Free Trade' and 'Protectionist' groups of countries.
• BRIC come second and Europe comes third. Which is again highly ironic as BRIC rely heavily on trade-driven model for growth and Europe can't get over how (allegedly) free trade it is.
• Everywhere, save Russia and the U.S., state aid & bailouts is minor segment of trade protectionism policies.
• Export subsidies are meaningful in China and India.
• Trade defence and finance measures dominate in the U.S., India, Brazil and Europe, and are weaker in Japan and China, while virtually non-existent in Russia.

All-in - a pretty ugly picture of reality post-crisis.