Europe’s competition policy has successfully contained the rise in concentration and excess profits, and the EU should not follow the US in weakening its approach. Instead, the EU needs to strengthen its trade policy to be more assertive on reciprocity in market access and control of industrial subsidies.

The world trading system is facing an existential crisis. This calls for a significant update of the rulebook, dealing with dissatisfactions regarding negotiation and rules, surveillance, as well as adjudication.

On January 22, President Trump announced his decision to apply tariffs on imported washing machines and photovoltaic cells and modules, and other protectionist measures could follow. To understand what the impacts of such measures could be, we review an earlier episode, the steel safeguards imposed by George W. Bush in 2002.

Trade between Japan and the EU is not a big deal in world trade, barely more than 1%. Their Economic Partnership Agreement can nevertheless be very influential because, jointly, they are a party in more than 40% of world trade, and much more in innovative sectors.

The IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook points to weak demand and investment as the main factor behind the world trade slowdown. I argue that this conclusion is overblown and that the high-quality underlying work falls well short of explaining the slow trade puzzle.

After an eventful year, many questions are raised about trends in the world economy, on which CEPII will aim at shedding light in the coming year.

The U.S. administration insists on the fact that the TPP is ‘enforceable’. If experience of previous US trade agreements is to offer any guidance, this enforceability cannot be taken for granted. Yet the stakes are high for both regional trade rules’ credibility, and for multilateralism’s future.

Georges Sokoloff nous a quittés ce lundi 7 décembre. Avec ce contributeur de toujours aux travaux du CEPII disparaît l’un des meilleurs experts du monde russe et soviétique.

Despite the magnitude of the Transpacific Partnership Agreement concluded by the United States, the EU should not heed calls to rush into concluding ongoing Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership talks under the Obama administration at any cost, and focus instead on negotiating a good agreement.

Regulatory coherence is claimed to be the core of the potential economic stakes in the TTIP. As the 9th Round of Negotiations is being convened in New York City, time has come for discussions to take a more concrete form.