The Risk of Trade Wars Becomes A Reality

Trump’s trade actions and its contagion effects could theoretically lead to a slow erosion of the global rules-based trading system

Names can reveal a lot. The recurring cold waves buffeting Europe are called “beast from the east” because of their origin in Siberia. It is unlikely that the trade chill arising in the US and threatening to freeze global commerce will be given a similar sobriquet. US’ controversial decision to levy import duties—25% on steel and 10% on aluminium imports—has given rise to martial terms like trade war, with many countries threatening to retaliate. But truth be told, this is one winter that is unlikely to thaw any time soon.

But all credit to US President Donald Trump for not deviating from script. Multiple risk forecasts for 2018 had predicted a ratcheting up of trade protectionism. The tariff order—purportedly for national security purposes and to save jobs in the US steel industry—fulfils these prophesies. It now becomes necessary to see how the ripples left behind have an impact on India. Below the currents lies another trade development which is taking shape slowly but with potential to affect India.

As numerous reports show, US’ steel and aluminium import levies do not harm India grievously. India’s exports of steel (raw and finished) and aluminium into the US do not exceed $2 billion: it’s less than 5% of the $42 billion exported to the US in 2016-17. The effects will be felt elsewhere: Intermediate goods that originate in the US and form part of the global supply chain will become more expensive and could slow down wheels of trade. A study by Christine McDaniel, former senior economist with the White House council of economic advisers, has shown this is the US’ trade war with itself, given that industries consuming steel to manufacture other products (such as automobiles or washing machines) employ more workers than steel mills.

There will be some indirect consequences for India as well, with many countries threatening to erect their own protectionist walls. According to a Standard and Poor’s publication Global Trade At Crossroads, the strong undertow will be felt globally: “The retaliatory spiral could lead to a breakdown in the global rules-based trading system and raise the risk of an all-out trade war, eventually hurting exporters both in the US and globally.” At risk is India’s incipient export growth momentum: exports during April-February 2017-18 were $273.73 billion, 11% higher than the corresponding period of previous year.

Many commentators were critical of India’s higher import duty rates, presented during budget 2018-19, especially since they were introduced soon after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech at Davos cautioned against growing protectionism. While the new tariffs do seem to contradict India’s stand on free trade, they are broadly consistent with its World Trade Organization (WTO) commitments and are within the bound rates fixed for India.

Trump’s trade actions and its contagion effects also do not violate WTO norms but, by bringing in a national security angle, could theoretically lead to a slow erosion of the global rules-based trading system. The WTO mini ministerial scheduled in Delhi from 19 March might provide a window into the future of the multilateral trading system.

As things stand, US has often been accused of subverting the WTO system when the going gets tough. It has been holding up the appointment of judges to WTO’s appellate body, actively preventing a satisfactory closure to the food security discussions and openly supporting bilateral deals over a multilateral solution. Its unilateral approach to trade—naming and shaming countries through Special 301 or its WTO-plus intellectual property laws—are regarded as openly contemptuous of multilateral systems.

On the sidelines, another global trade development is quietly challenging its predominance. On 8 March, 11 Asia-Pacific countries signed the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), an improved version of the earlier Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) from which the US walked out. What makes the new agreement interesting, apart from 11 nations opting to go ahead without the US, is the relaxation of certain clauses specifically introduced by the US.

The new agreement puts on hold 20 provisions from the old draft, 11 of which relate to intellectual property rights (IPR) included at the US’ insistence. Among the changes introduced are a truncated patent protection phase for innovative medicines, or narrower data protection rules for new pharmaceutical products or biologics. Gone also are some of the onerous investor-state dispute settlement clauses.

India should be concerned about what remains on the books because some clauses could indirectly put pressure for an overhaul of its domestic policies: the chapter on state-owned enterprises is one example. By adopting these rules for trading within themselves, the 11 CPTPP members—Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Japan, Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia, Peru, Chile and Vietnam—might demand other trade partners to follow some of these rules. They are unlikely to have one set of rules for TPP members and another set for other trade partners.

It is also quite likely, though not definite, that CPTPP will have a benign influence on other trade pacts involving India, such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, which has many common members with CPTPP and is currently being negotiated. India will have to be prepared for this eventuality.

The above article was originally published in Mint newspaper and can also be read here

Caught Between The Dragon And The Elephant

India’s trade diplomats will need some deft footwork to manage two trade partners—China and the US

Two large beasts cramp our geostrategic mindspace. One, China’s dragon refuses to vacate our imagination. The second one stirring about in the same space is expected to further cramp room for manoeuvrability. The current US administration, much like the Republican Party’s elephant symbol, is steamrollering global multilateral negotiations. Both these heavyweights present India with a difficult balancing act.

The first inkling of India’s expected high-wire act came from Chile last week when 11 members of the floundering Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), all founding nations barring the US, met to revive the plurilateral agreement. An added twist was China’s presence at the meeting.

It is expected that China will step into the US’ large shoes. America’s withdrawal from the TPP was seen as a parting kiss of death since its stewardship had kept negotiations alive. Having invested time, resources and political capital—especially on beyond-the-border issues like labour standards, environment rules and intellectual property laws—many developing countries are loath to let all that work go to waste.

These developments point to the likelihood of an alternative Asia-Pacific trade agreement, perhaps without the trademark TPP markers. Importantly, China was not part of the TPP, which was seen as an instrument and extension of the US’ strategic power. While it is still early to predict how it will all shape up, hopes are the new pact will be built on the back of Latin America’s four-country Pacific Alliance and South-East Asia’s Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).

India is part of the RCEP trade and investment initiative being negotiated between 16 countries—10 countries from the Association of South-East Asian Nations (Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, Brunei and the Philippines) and six others with which the regional grouping has a free trade agreement (India, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand). Many of these nations are also TPP members. The RCEP provides India an opportunity to stamp its strategic and economic presence across the Asia-Pacific. It also provides India an opportunity to bring multilateralism back to centre stage.

But here’s the thing. With China assuming leadership of the RCEP and the putative Asia-Pacific alliance, the world will be keenly watching the shape of the new trade and investment agreement, especially who gets to set standards and the nature of standards finalized. The TPP’s insistence on standardized labour, environment and intellectual property right (IPR) regulations (apart from a host of other issues) conflicted with notions of sovereignty.

The question now is: Will China impose similar standards?

While China has publicly endorsed World Trade Organization (WTO)-compatible trade agreements, will it cherrypick rules? India and China share an uneasy geostrategic relationship, especially in trade. India’s three-tiered tariff proposal for the RCEP has already met with disapproval and India’s push for inclusion of trade in services faces multiple headwinds.

In the other corner, the US’ browbeating at the recently concluded G20 meeting in Germany provides a glimpse of forthcoming challenges to the existing world trade order and globalization. During the drafting of the final communiqué, the US bullied all members to drop pro forma references to free trade and protectionism. Not surprisingly, all members complied, though they did grumble in private.

US President Donald Trump’s administration has repeatedly emphasized that it prefers bilateral agreements over multilateral compacts. The 2017 Trade Policy Agenda makes it official: “The overarching purpose of our trade policy…will be to expand trade in a way that is freer and fairer for all Americans…these goals can be best accomplished by focusing on bilateral negotiations rather than multilateral negotiations—and by renegotiating and revising trade agreements when our goals are not being met.”

India does not have a free trade agreement with the US and negotiations over a bilateral investment treaty between the two countries is stuck over, among other things, the investor-state dispute system. IPR laws are the other thorn in the relationship: India claims its IPR regime is compliant with the WTO’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights while the US insists on a WTO-plus framework. This has prompted the US to unilaterally include India in its “Priority Watch List” under Special 301.

The trade agenda outlines the future course of the bilateral: “Although existing Indian trade and regulatory policies have inhibited an even more robust trade and investment relationship, India’s economic growth and development could support significantly more US exports…In 2017, the United States will press India to make meaningful progress…on intellectual property rights, promoting investment in manufacturing, agriculture, and trade in goods and services.”

This, in short, is the dilemma. India’s geostrategic ambitions include RCEP membership but it will have to contend with China’s growing heft and increasing pressures to further reduce tariffs. India’s trade deficit with China is growing every year and shows no signs of reversing. On the other hand, India’s support for multilateralism will have to contend with the US’ insistence on bilateral treaties and a re-examination of all existing trade relations. Ironically, India enjoys a trade surplus with the US—in 2015, it touched $30 billion. India’s trade diplomats will need some deft footwork to manage these two trade partners and contradictions.

The above article was published in Mint newspaper and can also be read here 

India’s five-cornered trade strategy

Five rather unfavourable trends define India’s trade performance over the past two years; these trends also provide useful pointers as to where India’s future trade strategy can go over the next three years as it deals with a global economic slowdown, the rise of megatrade agreements and a pivot to a more intensive trade relation with the U.S.

The Narendra Modi government’s trade policy has been marked by five noteworthy, but rather unflattering, trends: declining trade volumes, unsuccessful diversification of trade destinations, continuing deadlock in U.S.-India commercial ties, India’s services strength remaining underutilised in trade agreements, and, lack of a national strategy for mega trade agreements.

This then shapes the government’s trade agenda for the next three years.

The first element, the dismal state of India’s trade, impacts Indian industry. In the two years of the current government, exports have contracted by almost 17% — from $314.405 billion in fiscal 2013-14 (April 2013 to March 2014, a couple of months before Modi and his Cabinet were sworn in) to $261.136 billion in 2015-16. Even imports have dipped by a considerable 16% during the same period: from $450.12 billion to $379.6 billion.[1]

To be fair, exogenous factors are behind the drop. The global slowdown has eroded demand for manufactured goods. But, while global trade in 2015 expanded – albeit marginally, by 2.8%[2] — India’s trade shrunk. In addition, lower commodity prices have impacted volumes and values for both exports and imports. However, the fall in imports has another worrisome aspect – it could signify lower demand for raw materials and intermediate products from Indian manufacturing sector. Combined with lower merchandise exports, which also affects broad swathes of industry, contracting trade volumes adversely impact employment, incomes, investment, consumption and economic growth.

                        Exports                                      Imports

2013-14:    $314.405 billion USD        $450.199 billion USD
2014-15:    $310.338 billion USD        $448,033 billion USD
2015-16:    $261.136 billion USD        $379.596 billion USD
Source: Department of Commerce, Ministry of Commerce & Industry

Undoubtedly, trade performance has to be improved urgently. One reason for India’s continuing indifferent trade performance is lack of integration with regional and global supply chains. Foxconn’s decision to set up a handset manufacturing unit in India is an improvement but it will require many similar initiatives to markedly improve India’s trade profile.

This brings up the second aspect. India has been trying for some years to diversify its export destinations, away from the developing countries of North America, Europe and Japan where demand and consumption levels have dropped appreciably. India saw in Africa a key trade and investment partner and fixed a $90-billion trade target for 2015. It finalised similar trade targets with ASEAN, other regional groupings and individual countries. Unfortunately, most of these trade targets remain unattainable.

For example, trade between Indian and Africa fell short of the $90-billion target – two-way trade dropped from $71.5 billion during 2014-15 to $ 56.67 billion by 2015-16. One of the reasons for the shortfall is the steep drop in commodity prices, leading to the oil import bill from Nigeria (India imports about 15% of its oil from that country) shrinking. However, that still does not explain the lack of a concerted thrust at creating alternative markets for Indian goods and services in either Africa or Latin America. It’s not too late, given India’s strategic and civilizational ties in these two continents.

The third facet is a visible pivot over the past two years towards a more intense trade and investment relationship with U.S., though the results are mixed[3].

India’s engagement with U.S. froze under UPA-II regime. However, the past two years have seen considerable energy invested in the relationship. Trade ties between the two nations is conducted through the Trade Policy Forum (TPF, set up in 2005), under the broad rubric of the US-India Strategic and Commercial Dialogue. The forum’s ninth meeting was held in October 2015 and like other previous rounds, the outcome remained wedged between on familiar issues – agriculture market access, intellectual property rights, trade in goods and services. Strategy firm Albright Stonebridge Group comments: “Will the TPF continue to be a talk shop where issues are raised, discussed and shelved for discussion next year…Over the last few years a meeting would be called successful if both sides simply showed up to the meeting at the agreed place and time, discussed the agenda and closed by agreeing to disagree.”[4]

One of the perennial sticking points in the India-U.S trade negotiations is services, the fourth pillar of India’s trade profile and unarguably a competitive advantage. The Economic Survey for 2015-16 states: “WTO data shows that India’s services exports grew from $16.8 billion in 2001 to $155.6 billion — which constitutes 7.5% of the GDP — in 2014, making the country the eighth largest services exporter in the world. The share of India’s services exports in global services exports at 3.2% in 2014, is nearly double its share of merchandise exports in global merchandise exports at 1.7%.”[5]

But, India has failed to utilise this competitive trade advantage, specifically cross-border movement of professionals, in various trade agreements.

For instance, India signed a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with ASEAN for goods first, and then followed it up five years later with a FTA on services. In the interim, India suffered a negative trade balance given the SE Asian region’s superior manufacturing capability and integration with global supply chains. Strategically, if India had signed an FTA for both goods and services simultaneously, the outcome might have been different.

The past lessons seem to have been learnt and, in various FTA talks, India is now insisting on inclusion of freer movement of professionals in return for demands to lower customs tariffs.

The fifth corner of India’s future trade strategy relates to mega trade agreements. The largest – Trans Pacific Partnership – promises to change how trade is conducted. India and China are noticeably absent from the pact; in fact, if the other mega agreement under discussion (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, between USA and Europe) is finalised, India and China could find themselves in trade hibernation.

Opinion is divided[6] [7] on whether India should join TPP, even though scholars are unanimous that such mega agreements will definitely result in trade diversion for India. Excluded by both TPP and TTIP, India has now set its eyes on completing the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), a trade and investment agreement between ASEAN members plus India, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. Simultaneously, President Obama is pushing for India’s membership in Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation, a 21-country regional economic forum. In fact, APEC membership is a stepping stone for TPP inclusion.

India’s strategy on mega agreements should be to first conclude RCEP without compromising on its strengths. Alongside, India should also try and finalise FTAs with individual states, such as Australia. At the same time, the government must initiate a broader public discussion on India’s trade strategy, specifically to clarify the country’s stand on TPP and its focus on “beyond-border” issues, such as domestic labour laws or environment rules.

This feature was exclusively written for Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations. It can be read here also
References

[1] India’s Foreign Trade: March 2016; Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Govt of India; April 18, 2016; http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=0

[2] Trade Statistics and Outlook: Trade growth to remain subdued in 2016 as uncertainties weigh on global demand; Press Release No Press/768; World Trade Organisation; April 7, 2016; https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/pres16_e/pr768_e.pdf

[3] Elliot, Mark and Linda Dempsey; Stalled Progress on U.S.-Indian Trade; The Washington Times; January 12, 2016;www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jan/12/mark-elliot-linda-dempsey-stalled-progress-on-us-i/print/

[4] India Newsletter; Determining Success or Failure of United States-India Trade Policy Forum; October 28, 2015; Albright Stonebridge Group;http://www.albrightstonebridge.com/news/determining-success-or-failure-united-states-india-trade-policy-forum

[5] Page 158, Services Sector (Chapter 7), Economic Survey 2015-16, Vol 2, Ministry of Finance, Govt of India

[6] Banga, Rashmi & Pritish Kumar Sahu; Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA): Implications for India’s Trade and Investments; Working Paper CWS/WP/200/24; October 2015; Centre for WTO Studies; http://wtocentre.iift.ac.in/workingpaper/Trans%20Pacific%20Partnership%20Agreement_Implications%20for%20India.pdf

[7] Bergsten, Fred C; India’s Trade Gains From Joining An APEC-Wide TPP; September 18, 2015; Peterson Institute for International Economics;https://piie.com/research/piie-charts/indias-trade-gains-joining-apec-wide-tpp