The end of an era is dawning — even if it's just one of trade hypocrisy
A pillar of US trade is protectionism, which has nothing to do with development; at least it now admits it won’t be opening up its markets further
According to news reports, the recent meeting of G20 finance ministers was a disaster. US Secretary of the Treasury, Steve Mnuchin, blocked language on free trade that would have reiterated the G20’s commitment to "resist all forms of protectionism", thereby breaking with long-standing G20 and US policy. These reports may be accurate, but they don’t offer the background and context necessary to understand these developments. To begin with, G20 platitudes on trade have been reiterated since the G20 took over from the G7 as the informal meeting of the world’s decision makers nearly a decade ago. The G20 has avoided prescriptive language on trade, knowing it to be the domain of another international body, the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which has more or less been unable to expand its "free-trade" mandate since the failed Doha Development Round, which began in 2001. The G20 paragraphs on free trade (and those of other international bodies such as the G7, the Organisation for Econom...
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