Stay-at-home economics: is world trade in decline?

In October 2015, the US, Japan and 10 other Pacific Rim countries agreed – though haven’t yet ratified – the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP); that same month, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a proposed bilateral agreement between the US and EU, brought 200,000 protesters on to the streets of Berlin against it.

The Doha round of global trade negotiations, begun in 2001, has effectively collapsed. On the other hand, the internet has not yet undergone the Balkanisation that many predicted. This session will look at new forms of protectionism and ask whether the project of global free trade is now in jeopardy.

QUESTIONS

1) Where have we got to with the TPP, the TTIP and Regional Trade Agreements?

2) States used to impose tariffs and quotas; then they insisted that inward investors make things with high levels of local content. What are tomorrow’s spats likely to revolve around?

3) What do Brussels vs Washington arguments over the ‘tax planning’ of Google and other US tech firms portend?

4) What are the likely impacts of the TPP and the TTIP for participants, and especially countries like China and India that are not parties to these agreements?

5) Whatever happened to the Balkanisation of the Internet?