Reference News website reported on April 16 an article titled "Trump's Tariffs Enhance China's Soft Power" published by the "Nikkei Asian Review" on April 15. The author of the article is Natsumi Kawasaki. Here are excerpts from the interview with Richard Baldwin, professor of International Economics at Geneva University:
The Trump administration has destroyed two important principles of the World Trade Organization (WTO). First is the extremely important principle of "most-favored-nation" treatment. If this rule is ignored, the entire trade order that has been built will be fundamentally undermined.
Secondly, anti-dumping duties and emergency import restrictions, which are trade remedies permitted by the WTO, have not been utilized by Trump. Instead, he has acted arbitrarily in accordance with his own set of rules, severely violating existing regulations.
The implementation of a series of tariff policies is essentially an attack by the world's largest trading nation on the multilateral trading system.
Importantly, Japan, Europe, China, as well as major emerging markets like ASEAN, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey have consistently adhered to trade based on WTO rules.
To clarify whether America's actions comply with international law, countries and regions should seek assistance from the WTO dispute settlement mechanism respectively. Doing nothing would amount to tacit approval of American actions. All countries retaliating against the U.S. should also follow WTO rules.
China faces particularly high tariffs. From an economic perspective, China is in a more disadvantageous position than other countries. However, China has begun exploring assistance under the WTO framework through multilateral mechanisms.
From the perspective of soft power, compared to the severely deteriorated image of the United States, China is relatively better positioned.
For a long time, the U.S. has been an unshakable leader in international trade. However, it has now completely denied this system. Expelling the U.S. from the WTO could lead to even more intense retaliation and chaos, so such speculation should be ruled out. However, the WTO needs a new leader. Japan and the EU should cooperate with China and others to safeguard the WTO. (Compiled/translated by Liu Lin)
Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7493812700628173331/
Disclaimer: This article only represents the views of the author. Please express your attitude by clicking the "like/dislike" buttons below.