Upcoming Events
Trade Talk with Keith Rockwell: The age of trade fragmentation
Event Details
29 August 2023 | 17:00 to 18:30 (SGT)
The global trading system has become increasingly riven by a rising tide of geoeconomic fragmentation, grappling with its greatest challenges since the first establishment of the multilateral trading system in 1947. Hinrich Foundation Senior Research Fellow Keith Rockwell, a longtime former World Trade Organization director will address these and related issues including trade protectionism and industrial policy at an Open House on 29 August. Join us in person or online. Attendance is free.
The resurgence of protectionism and trade weaponization from a succession of geopolitical and supply shocks including China’s rise, the Covid-19 pandemic, and the Russia-Ukraine war, are accelerating global economic fragmentation, causing significant disruptions to global value chains.
Increasingly, the world is lacking a major superpower that sets a progressive agenda for global trade and how to achieve it. In the past, it has been the United States who drove the agenda. Today, this is no longer the case. Such is the politically toxic nature of trade in the United States today, that US politicians and officials increasingly find it politically untenable to deepen multilateral engagement even with its key allies worldwide.
Meantime, the rising heft of China’s unique state-centric economy and its willingness to weaponize its commercial power continue to challenge conventional structures of international governance designed more for market economies.
As the world increasingly turns to trade protectionism, and plurilaterals emerge as an organic attempt to patch over the deep-seated differences at the WTO, Hinrich Foundation Senior Research Fellow Keith Rockwell examines how the WTO can keep pace with the changing global economy and ask where the future for multilateralism lies.
Join us at our Trade Talk Open House on 29 August 2023 from 5pm SGT at the Hinrich Foundation’s Singapore office at The Central Clarke Quay. Admission is free.
Virtual access to the session is also available to all registrants.
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