Most of those who either preach or negotiate free trade are just like a Peeping Tom in a nudist camp.

Sir, Alan Beattie, referring to the possible escalation of trade wars writes: “At the time the WTO is most needed, its failings become ever more manifest. Without reform, the organization itself will suffer severe, possibly fatal, collateral damage from the US-China struggle” "A global trading system under fire” October 22.

Beattie also quotesPascal Lamy, a former head of the WTO: “Whether we like Trump or not — and I do not like Trump, I think he must be credited with one thing, which is to have put this issue of WTO reform on the table.”

Having been busy denouncing failed and dangerous bank regulations, I have not followed WTO for more than a decade but, back in 2006 and 2007, I remember Grant Aldonas, Fred Bergsten and Martin Wolf already opining strongly on the need for WTO to reform.

The reforms requested were not only about efficiency… they were about the real core of free trade.

For instance Grant Aldonas held that the success of any reforms, depended on “WTO negotiators recognizing where the conventional mercantilist approach has taken them [so as to] turn around, head back up the road and chart a new course to achieve the development goals that were their original destination” “Why trade negotiators need driving lessons” May 3, 2006.

In a letter, I agreed stating “Currently trade negotiations, instead of opening the doors to the greener pastures we all wish for, feels more like someone corralling you in, to brand you.”

Grant Aldonas later also suggested a “plurilateral agreement among all WTO members willing to move directly to free trade on a global basis”, “A fresh free trade agenda for Doha”, July 13, 2007.

Again I agreed: “Just like in a nudist camp, we need to separate the real nudists from the Peeping Toms. Only this would allow us to conform a true and honest free trade core. It is clear that many of those who profess a belief in free trade fake it, since how could you otherwise explain the sort of perverse satisfaction many show from entering into negotiating processes that hinders the free trade from really advancing. The true spirit of free trade does not stand a chance against these saboteurs and who are simply too scared of taking off their protections, but want to enjoy the view anyhow.”

When Martin Wolf in April 2007 opined “If free trade is really as good as we say it is, then why should we negotiate about it”, I responded: “Indeed,you do not go to a nudist camp to play strip-poker!”

Sir, most of those holier than thou free-traders bashing President Donald Trump for imposing restrictions on trade, are just like a Peeping Tom preaching the merits of nudity, for other.

WTO bureaucrats also help make WTO inutile, as a result of many of them being engaged, primarily, in the protection of their own turf.

Protectionism comes in all colors and shapes. Those tariffs and subsidies imbedded in the risk weighted capital requirements for banks, are many times more costly to the world than any trade tariffs Trump can come up with.

PS. I myself must confess that, even though I am in principle all for free trade, I often find myself worrying about that all deficits and surpluses are not made equal, some are better, some are much worse.

@PerKurowski

Donald Trump, with a huge political bounty on his head, poses little real threat to that dry hide global trade is.

Lately, every day, I have gotten, I don’t know why, at least ten offers to be part of the bringing Donald Trump down effort, asking me of course to help pre-finance it. There’s no doubt there’s a huge bounty offered for Donald Trump’s political head.

Then in Venezuela, when referring to complex issues, we also have a saying that goes: “You step on one corner of the dry hide, and up goes the other!”

Sir, and that is why I refuse to believe Alan Beattie when he writes that “Fate of free trade depends on the whims of one man”, referring to President elect Donald Trump, January 17.

Trade is a dry hide, you save some jobs here, and you lose some there, and you need to convince some consumers to pay for it all. To then go against free trade, after globalization has brought forward so many of its offerings, and when having a huge bounty on your political head, sounds like a true mission impossible. In fact, were Trump to manage to do so; it would be difficult to ascertain whether Trump is too smart or the bounty hunters too bad.

PS. Sir, Beattie refers to a possible role of WTO. That shows he does not know how much WTO has already been left behind by trade realities. (Sorry WTO technocrats, its not my fault)

PS. In the 1870s, they did not have container-ships, or so much interdependence on the production of parts, or so many consumers shopping on the web.

PS. Are there no threats then to global trade? Oh yes, but Donald Trump's trade policies, is not one of these.

@PerKurowski

Financial Time’s Hillary Clinton interview

Sir the following is my reaction after reading the interview of Senator Hillary Clinton, conducted by Financial Times ’s Washington bureau chief Edward Luce.

Protectionism: Full fledged competition in a globalized world would have eroded the profitability of many companies had we not awarded them the protection of intellectual property rights, and invested some serious money in making that shield mean something. Can you imagine Microsoft in a world where efficient software copiers are free to roam?

Therefore since most of labor have not been furnished similar new protections, and some old ones have in fact been taken away, it should not come as a surprise that the share of labor income as a percentage of GDP is dropping, and that this is, certainly and rightly, creating a source of conflict.

So what’s to be done? There are only two choices? Either we award to labor similar protections which would set us all on a de-globalization route, a lose-lose proposition; or we must require that the beneficiaries of intellectual property rights give back some extra of their quasi-monopoly based extra earnings to the society. As an absolute minimum, this should represent the direct cost of enforcing and defending their rights. Is this protectionism? No at all!

Review of existing trade agreements: Absolutely. In some of the US bilateral agreement some prohibitions were imposed on developing countries because at the time they were considered as appropriate, but hindsight has led to other conclusions and so these clauses need to be revisited. For instance some US trade agreements prohibit any restrictions on capital movement even though now these restrictions are deemed quite good at taking away some of the excessive volatility that the waters of the global financial oceans can have on local bathtubs.

Energy and environment: “the most important thing is getting the US focused on energy efficiency, on clean renewable energy, combating global warming on raising gas mileage etc.” Just like the recent Nobel price recipient Hillary Clinton does not have the courage of spelling out what is primarily needed to really alter the energy and environment realities in the US, namely a substantial tax on gasoline consumption.

Housing crisis: Just like the US can sometimes use a Strategic Petroleum Reserve I would suggest the government buying a large amount of the houses currently involved with subprime loans; at a price below the current outstanding mortgage; financed by the current mortgage holder; and giving the current debtor a option to repurchase his house in a couple of years at a price that would keep the tax-payer form being harmed. That’s what I would do… but then again I am no PhD and so I could be wrong

Yes we need a Peeping Tom free, free trade core

Sir, I could not be more in agreement with Mr Grant Aldonas’ suggestion for the first part of “A fresh free trade agenda for Doha”, July 13, namely that of a “plurilateral agreement among all WTO members willing to move directly to free trade on a global basis”. Just like in a nudist camp we need to separate the real nudists from the Peeping Toms, as only this would allow us to conform a true and honest free trade core

It is clear that many of those who profess a belief in free trade fake it, since how could you otherwise explain the sort of perverse satisfaction many show from entering into negotiating processes that hinders the free trade from really advancing. The true spirit of free trade does not stand a chance against these saboteurs and who are simply too scared of taking off their protections, but want to enjoy the view anyhow.

But ignoring labour rights and standards altogether will not get us anywhere either.

Sir, Jagdish Bhagwati in “Free trade’s foes get a foot in the door” May 22, lashes out against labour standards as a tool of protectionism. Be that as it may, and I tend to agree with him on the risks of an improper use of the standards, we must still know that in order for the world to become a better place we cannot really think of splitting it up into highly-regulated-consumer-societies and free-to-do-whatever-they-want -producers. So, if you don’t want to mix trade and labour standards in the World Trade Organization, then as Bhagwati mentions you can always go to the International Labour Organization… but do it!

Bhagwati also points out as a special circumstance “that the pursuit of labour standards today reflects not altruism and empathy but fear and self interest”. I am not that sure it ever was about anything else but fear and self interest, but if we really want it to be about altruism and empathy let us then make certain we discuss the labour standards from that point of view, as ignoring them completely do not seem that compatible with altruism and empathy either.

A spaghetti bowl might give more jobs… to some

Sir, Martin Wolf makes a splendid case for how the free trade reforms could be handled better than when “A Korean-American strand enters trade’s spaghetti bowl”. April 3.

What he might turn his eyes blind to (quite appropriate for a columnist of his statute) is that many or perhaps even most of those working on free-trade-issues might be following their own expanded agenda of working-on-free-trade-issues and in that respect, to try to make sense out of a spaghetti bowl, seems to guarantee much more jobs than a straightforward single WTO.

I do concur with Wolf when he mentions that “a single trade agreement open up to any single country prepared to sign up” could be a much more useful template since indeed, if free trade is really as good as we say it is, then why should we negotiate about it. I mean, you do not go to a nudist camp to play strip-poker!

WTO, please take your time!

Sir, Fred Bergsten’s “Plan B for world trade: go regional” August 16, reads a bit like a bewildered courtiers screaming out “The Kings is dead, long live the King” anxious to regain their footing and sense of order in life.

As I see it though, instead of rushing into new negotiations, desperately looking for results, any results, more could be gained from using the declared time out for some very serious house cleaning activities, destined to put some order into what is frequently described as the spaghetti bowl of trade agreements. Any global trading system, in order to be credible, needs at one point of time to be understandable and there is a feeling that there has been quite a long time since ordinary subjects, as I, have been able to understand and much less identify with what the monarchs were up to.

I have recently had the luck of being able to participate in a course about the Integrated Trade Solution (WITS) software being developed by The World Bank in collaboration with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and that helps to provide access to the major trade and tariffs data. After that course, the real unanswered question for me was how on earth did we get anywhere without instruments like these? Or, does anyone really know where we really are as a world in terms of trade? WTO, please, take your time before you start rushing again, otherwise you might really lose us.

A not too transparent recommendation from Mr Wolf

Sir, Mr Wolf in desperation of achieving some positive results from the “Ten days that could shake the World Trade Organisation”, June 21, is willing to put it all in jeopardy by asking world leaders to give their negotiators carte blanche since “they can do so confident that it will not haunt them: the results would only be implemented long after they leave office; and implementation of even the most controversial deals has often passed unnoticed”.

This is exactly the type of non-transparency that would make it impossible for WTO to live up in the long run to its global institutional purposes, and it reminds me so much of some privatizations I witnessed, when the order of the day was to postpone any major increases in tariffs a couple years, so that consumers would not be able to connect the dots.

It is also wrong of Wolf to hype the demands for results of the upcoming negotiations too much and even mentioning “potentially devastating consequences of failure”, as this could spill over into those disappointments that feed the self-realization of prophecies. Instead, we need to put forward the argument that independently of the results, WTO has a vital role to play since the world cannot afford to lose “a highly successful dispute settlement system” and it also needs a world-class coordinator to give support to whatever other negotiations, multilateral regional or bilateral, that could help the world to keep moving forward in the vital issues of trade.

It is strange that although Wolf tells us “Personally, I believe these rounds no longer make sense”, he should still feel the need of ordering us to bet our last clean shirt on them.

The world needs open pastures, not corrals

Grant Aldonas, May 14, begs WTO negotiators to “turn around (in their cul-de-sac) and head back to the road and chart a new course to achieve the development goals that were their original destination”, "Why trade negotiators need driving lessons" May 3

He is absolutely right. Currently trade negotiations, instead of opening the doors to the greener pastures we all wish for, because of their total mercantilist approach, feels more like someone corralling you in, to brand you.

Sent to FT May 10, 2006