Dueling Views on Trade on Display This Week

The latest Trump tariff threat, of course, is designed to facilitate conclusion of the trade negotiations. Talks are scheduled for Washington DC on Thursday. It is certainly possible that the impeding escalation of tariffs will concentrate minds once more, leading to a very speedy conclusion of talks. Or not. Either way, the coming few days promise more drama on the US-China front than trade watchers have seen in months-- a major escalation of the trade war will happen on Friday or a truce. A second notable set of events takes place early next week that will also help shape global trade for the future. Dueling meetings are scheduled for Geneva and New Delhi for May 13-15. The former is the setting for the first round of talks of what is called the “plurilateral” on e-commerce in the World Trade Organization (WTO). Not all WTO member countries have agreed to join negotiations on the topic, so only a subset of members (74 so far) will sit down to start.

This has been an interesting, mixed, two weeks in trade. On the one hand, the system continues to receive new shocks, particularly from US President Donald Trump. On the other hand, trade integration is also moving forward. The net result continues to highlight the increasingly unsettled global environment. Firms need to focus on how to mitigate the risks facing their business operations.
Let’s start with the bad news. Two separate hearings have wrapped up in Washington. The first focused on product categories for an additional $16 billion in 25% tariff rate hikes against goods coming from China. Regular readers may recall that the Americans first produced a list of items totaling $50 billion for new tariff increases. The list was revised on the basis of hearings. The first $34 billion in tariffs have already gone into force (and were met with retaliation by China on a similar amount). But $16 billion in products were contested, resulting in a new list from the USTR. Now that hearings on the revised list of products has been completed, tariffs can be imposed at any time. Expect them to be announced on Friday (since this seems to be the preferred approach of the Trump administration). These new Section 301 tariffs will likely be met with $16 billion in matched retaliatory tariffs by China.