Trade Talk with Keith Rockwell
Published 19 September 2023
Hinrich Foundation’s second Open House featured Keith Rockwell, former director for the World Trade Organization and now Senior Research Fellow at the Foundation. Drawing on his nearly 30 years at the WTO, Keith discusses the series of global macro and trade shocks over the past 15 years that have upended the post-World War II framework for international economic cooperation and paved the way for an age of trade fragmentation.
Watch the webinar:
Protectionism has become the hallmark of trade policy worldwide. The invocation of national security as a rationale to restrict trade once considered exceptional in trade policy, has now become the norm. At a time when the logic for collective action on the climate, poverty reduction, and future pandemics has never been more evident, the folly of fragmentation is instead in ascendancy.
In his discussion on the ramifications of economic and geopolitical fragmentation on the global economy, Keith Rockwell talks about US trade policy, the impact of domestic politics on international trade policy, the increase in the number of national security exception invocations, and the role of multilateral organizations like the WTO in facilitating trade in a fragmented world.
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