Financial leaders of the world’s biggest economies dropped a pledge to keep global trade free and open, acquiescing to an increasingly protectionist US after a two-day meeting failed to yield a compromise.
Breaking a decade-long tradition of endorsing open trade, G20 finance ministers and central bankers made only a token reference to trade in their communique on Saturday, a clear defeat for host nation Germany, which fought the new US government’s attempts to water down past commitments.
In the new US administration’s biggest clash yet with the global community, G20 chiefs also removed from their statement a pledge to finance the fight against climate change, an anticipated outcome after US President Donald Trump called global warming a “hoax.”
In a meeting that some said was at times 19 against one, the US did not yield on key issues, essentially torpedoing earlier agreements as the G20 requires a consensus.
Still, the dialogue was friendly and non-confrontational, leaving the door open to a future deal, officials who attended the meeting said.
“This is my first G20, so what was in the past communique is not necessarily relevant from my standpoint,” US Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin said in the German resort town of Baden Baden.
“I understand what the [US] president’s desire is and his policies, and I negotiated them from here,” Mnuchin said. “I couldn’t be happier with the outcome.”
Seeking to put “America first,” Trump has already pulled out of a key trade agreement and proposed a new tax on imports, arguing that certain trade relationships need to be reworked to make them fairer for US workers.
“We believe in free trade, we are in one of the largest markets in the world, we are one of the largest trading partners in the world, trade has been good for us, it has been good for other people,” Mnuchin said. “Having said that, we want to re-examine certain agreements.”
International trade makes up almost half of global economic output and officials said the issue could be revisited at a meeting of G20 leaders in July.
While some expressed frustration, like French Minister of Finance Michel Sapin, others played down the dispute.
“It is not that we were not united,” German Minister of Finance Wolfgang Schaeuble said. “It was totally undisputed that we are against protectionism, but it is not very clear what [protectionism] means to each [minister].”
He added that some ministers did not have a full mandate to negotiate since they were not fully in charge of trade issues.
Others suggested that the G20 leaders’ meeting in Hamburg, Germany, in July could be the real opportunity to bring the US on board.
“It is not the best meeting we had, but we avoided backtracking,” EU Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs Pierre Moscovici said. “I hope in Hamburg the wording will be different. We need it. It is the raison d’etre for the G20.”
The communique also dropped a reference, used by the G20 last year, concerning the readiness to finance measures against climate change as agreed in Paris in 2015, because of opposition from the US and Saudi Arabia.
Trump has suggested global warming was a “hoax” concocted by China to hurt US industry and vowed to scrap the Paris climate accord aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions.
However, the G20 did show continuity in its foreign-exchange policies, using past phrases on currency markets.
“We reaffirm our previous exchange rate commitments, including that we will refrain from competitive devaluations and we will not target our exchange rates for competitive purposes,” the G20 said.
Leaders also upheld their commitments to financial sector regulation, supporting the finalization of bank rules known as Basel III, provided they do not significantly raise overall capital requirements.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day