This study investigates the effect of participation in the Global Value Chain (GVC) on Multidimensional Energy Poverty (MEPI), and the role played by the quality of institutions (QI) in the short and long run for 51 African countries over the period 1995–2018. For this purpose, the DCCE-PMG approach is employed, as well as both the GVC and QI indices. MEPI includes electricity, clean fuel, and technology for cooking. The findings show that GVC participation negatively affects MEPI in both the short and long run, meaning that the GVC reduces energy poverty in Africa. Besides, there is mixed evidence regarding the heterogeneity effect according to rural and urban locations. The evidence further shows that GVCs interact with institutions to negatively impact both energy poverty and the rural–urban MEPI gap, implying that the better the institutional quality, the larger the effect of GVC integration on energy poverty reduction. Therefore, a better quality of institution enables local firms, participating in the GVC, to easily capture technology and knowledge diffusion to promote energy development and fulfill the spatial inequality in energy poverty. Additional tests allow us to confirm the evidence and, moving forward, the implications of participation in the GVC.

Trade concerns at World Trade Organization (WTO) Committees and Councils show the WTO’s involvement in addressing digital trade beyond treaty-making and dispute settlement cases. Observations from a database analysing relevant concerns foremost raised at the Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) show an increasingly significant occurrence of trade concerns not corresponding to the idea of them being a vehicle for tension-defusing dialogue. Two relevant observations are the prominence among involved WTO members of China, the European Union, and the United States of America, and the contentiousness of raised issues, such as cybersecurity or artificial intelligence. Those observations highlight that concerns voiced about digital trade in technical WTO bodies, such as the TBT Committee, also are vehicles of members’ political commitment and confrontation. The article concludes by putting these findings in the perspective of the contribution that WTO bodies, like the TBT Committee, can make to address digital trade.

This article considers whether Members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) can develop a collective response to a globally welfare-damaging situation that impacts individual Members differentially. We conclude that collective action remains within the letter and spirit of the WTO Agreements. We set out the enabling procedures for collective action in a WTO dispute setting, in particular, the use of the rarely used situation complaint. We were motivated by the United States’ move to redraw its trade relations and break from its international trade commitments through bilateral negotiations in which it holds asymmetric leverage, buttressed by a pre-emptive announced escalation in response to any attempt by counterparties to join in forging a collective response. We conclude that, if undertaken, collective action can raise each Member’s voice into a countervailing choir and, more importantly, it can reinforce the mutual benefits derived from the multilateral trading system. Collective action thus serves a double purpose in engaging domestic concerns and the collective interests of those intending to preserve the multilateral system on which each Member depends.

Drawing on unbalanced panel data with a maximum of 271,656 bilateral trade flow observations from 1996 to 2021, this study investigates both the linear and nonlinear influence of national Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) performance gaps on green exports. When the ESG performance of the exporting country exceeds that of the destination country, the results indicate that an increase in the ESG gap significantly stimulates green exports, and there is evidence that this stimulating effect is achieved by widening green innovation gaps. However, the marginal effect diminishes as environmental regulations in the destination country become more stringent. Conversely, when the exporting country’s ESG performance is lower, narrowing the ESG gap leads to an N-shaped relationship with green exports, which remains U-shaped after removing the extremes. This research provides empirical evidence and policy implications for the trade effects of ESG performance from a macro perspective, while supporting the rationality and necessity of the ESG concept.

Why do some countries cooperate in international negotiations while others do not? This paper examines how regime type and trade relationships jointly shape cooperation among states. While prior research claims that democracies are inherently more cooperative and that trade fosters collaboration, we argue that neither factor alone sufficiently explains patterns of cooperation. Drawing on 1,567 documents submitted by World Trade Organization (WTO) members during the Doha Round negotiations (2000–2012), we analyse cooperation between country pairs (dyads) using hurdle models to assess both the likelihood and extent of cooperation. We find that democracies are not uniformly more cooperative but become so only when high levels of trade interdependence exist. Similarly, democracies also cooperate with authoritarian regimes when intensive trade relationships are present. These results challenge the assumption that democratic governance naturally generates cooperation, showing instead that economic incentives play a decisive role. The study advances understanding of international cooperation in complex multilateral negotiation settings.

As digital connectivity expands and more services become tradable online, international trade is increasingly transitioning into the digital realm. Consequently, the regulatory environment facilitating digital trade has emerged as a central aspect of trade policy. Empirical research plays a vital role in informing the design, implementation, and reform of regulatory policies to facilitate trade in the digital era. However, such research heavily relies on the availability of up-to-date regulatory information across various countries. This paper introduces the Digital Trade Integration (DTI) database, which provides an overview of regulatory policies and practices expected to impact digital trade integration across 146 countries. These measures are organized into 65 indicators and 12 policy pillars covering restrictive and enabling policies. This paper highlights global and regional trends that are considered the four main components of digital trade integration: regulating (Information and Communication Technology) ICT goods, online services, investment in sectors relevant to digital trade, and data. The findings underscore the necessity for ongoing research and policy development to foster an equitable and integrated global digital economy.

This article examines how critical minerals (CM) supply security has been absorbed into the evolving concept of national security underpinning foreign investment screening (FIS), using Australia’s treatment of Chinese CM investment as a case study. It argues that FIS now functions as a tool of strategic alignment through selective, opaque restrictions under the logic of friend-shoring. This shift raises structural tensions with Australia’s obligations under international investment agreements (IIAs). Through analysis of Australia’s FIS regime, its implementation shaped by a CM friend-shoring strategy, and potential conflicts with its IIAs with China, the article situates Australia within a broader global trend in which the expansion of FIS increasingly challenges the coherence of international investment law. It offers a novel conceptualization of FIS as a legal expression of the geoeconomic turn and proposes recommendations for reconciling strategic regulatory discretion with treaty-based commitments in an era of contested globalization.

The purpose of this study is to reveal the impact of pilot free trade zones (PFTZs) on local governance quality (LGQ) to provide a reference for driving governance reforms in China. Based on provincial panel data from 2004 to 2020 in China, the impact of the establishment of PFTZs on LGQ is analyzed by employing the multi-period difference-in-difference (DID) method. The results show that the establishment of PFTZs can significantly enhance the governance quality of local governments, but there is heterogeneity in location and establishment batches. PFTZs improve LGQ through the effects of institutional spillover, factor allocation, and talent agglomeration. FDI spillover can partially substitute for promoting the effect of PFTZs on LGQ, and economic growth pressures can distort the positive effect of PFTZs on LGQ. Therefore, policymakers should clarify the functional positioning of PFTZs and leverage their effects, which are institutional spillover, factor allocation, and high-end factor agglomeration, to enhance LGQ.

Like many newer EU Free Trade Agreements, the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) includes commitments concerning labour and social standards and environment and climate policy under the title the ‘Level Playing Field’. This title includes non-regression provisions, which prohibit reducing or weakening certain standards ‘in a manner affecting trade’, and novel rebalancing provisions, which allow the parties to take unilateral measures if material impacts on trade are arising as a result of significant divergences in levels of protection in specific areas of regulation. Although terminology linking trade to labour and environmental issues is becoming reasonably common in trade agreements, there has only been limited consideration as to what trade effects or impacts actually need to be demonstrated. This paper argues that the language of ‘manner affecting trade’ and ‘material impact on trade’ in the TCA denotes a ‘conditions of competition’ test as opposed to a stricter, and relatively more difficult to satisfy, trade remedies model. It further considers the possible application of the provisions in the context of the UK’s 2022 strikes measures, highlighting that even if a conditions of competition test is used, there are serious questions as to whether the non-regression and rebalancing provisions in the TCA are efficacious in achieving values-based objectives.

‘Trade wars are good, and easy to win,’ tweeted Donald Trump in 2018. The US–China trade war that followed proved otherwise – especially when confronting a major economic power. Yet, can trade wars ever be good? While the academic consensus holds they harm all participants, we argue that under certain circumstances they can produce positive outcomes. Set against the backdrop of the Liberation Day tariffs announced on April 2, 2025, this paper examines the limits of the Ricardian free trade model underpinning the current multilateral trading system, identifies when trade wars may serve strategic goals, and explores alternative rules to address state-capitalist distortions without costly, prolonged conflict.

This article considers the reciprocal duties proposed by the US administration, 2 April 2025. These are large import tariffs that will significantly disrupt the world trading system. Rather than considering the economic impacts of these tariffs, as others have and are doing, this article documents the rationale used to justify these destructive tariffs and their calculation. Using descriptive examples, the proposed duties are shown to be unfounded as reciprocal and generally ill advised.

This paper examines the likely economic consequences of a unilateral US trade policy, particularly those involving across-the-board tariffs and retreat from multilateral commitments. Drawing on computable general equilibrium (CGE) models, dynamic macroeconomic frameworks, and a rich body of empirical literature, the paper demonstrates that the static efficiency losses, estimated by standard trade models, understate the true costs of protectionism. It identifies five key amplification channels – loss of economies of scale, supply chain fragility, diminished technological spillovers, investment hold-up under policy uncertainty, and financial market reactions – that interact to depress both short-run output and long-run growth potential. The analysis estimates that comprehensive unilateral trade measures could reduce US GDP by 2–3% in the short term and lower the long-term growth trajectory by 0.4–0.7 percentage points annually. While some strategic interventions may yield resilience or national security benefits, the paper concludes that unilateralism generates systemic economic risks and should be approached with caution. The findings underscore the need for integrated policy frameworks that combine targeted trade tools with domestic support and international cooperation.

The informal exit of the United States from the WTO under Trump is the culmination of US frustration with the organization's legislative and judicial rigidity, a frustration that has been building on a bipartisan basis for two decades. The WTO's commitment to a single undertaking, its reliance on consensus-based decision making, and an activist Appellate Body that imposed de facto stare decisis eroded political support for WTO rules in the United States and opened the door for political opportunists to cast them aside. We argue that the original GATT was, on balance, a more flexible and politically savvy bargain despite its imperfections. The 30-year history of the WTO that replaced it suggests the folly of trying to rein in powerful countries with a ‘rules-based’ institution, at least when the rules are unable to adjust to political shocks.

In 2025, the United States raised tariffs to rates not seen for more than a century. These tariffs were not part of a carefully designed industrial strategy. Instead, the second Trump administration distanced itself from existing industrial policy initiatives and indicated a desire to roll back government-funded subsidies for businesses. This article examines the rationale behind the United States’ pivot from subsidies to tariffs and explores implications for trade partners and multilateral institutions.

The two economic superpowers operate increasingly outside WTO norms. China's reliance on non-market practices challenges the competitive equality among WTO members, while the US, under a second Trump administration, has unilaterally raised tariffs in defiance of multilateral rules. This essay examines how the rest of the world is de-risking from the two rogue superpowers while shoring up trade multilateralism. It identifies three interlinked strategies: (1) recalibration – reducing trade dependency through targeted trade remedies against China and narrow bilateral agreements with the US; (2) shielding – collective and unilateral responses to economic coercion of both superpowers; and (3) containment – preventing illegality from spreading to the rest of the world. Together, these modes of governance not only mitigate systemic spillovers from rule-breaking but also help rebalance global trade by addressing structural imbalances in Chinese overproduction and US overconsumption. In doing so, the rest of the world may lay the groundwork for a renewed and more resilient multilateral trading system.

Early signs suggest that Trump may revise the Biden administration's incentive-driven semiconductor policy and instead rely more heavily on tariffs to restore US semiconductor manufacturing. To what extent can semiconductor tariffs serve as a form of policy whiplash to compel foreign companies to relocate their operations? This article argues that while tariffs can influence investment decisions, Trump overstates their effects on fab locations and supply chain diversification. Semiconductor manufacturers weigh a complex set of factors encompassing partners in the supply chain ecosystem, potential regulatory scrutiny, technological trends, and more. Tariffs in and of themselves may not be a determinative factor behind TSMC's recently announced plan to expand its US investment.

The US plan to impose reciprocal tariffs is a game changer. If you ask The Economist, Trump's tariffs ‘really mean chaos for global trade’. If managed well, the opposite could be true: it could be the largest round of trade negotiations since the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and a much-needed rebalancing of global trade relations to catch up with fundamental changes that occurred, but remained unaddressed, for close to a quarter century.

The second Trump Administration, in office since January 2025, has disrupted the prevailing trade consensus. The corner stone of the new US trade policy is the re-introduction of old-style tariffs at substantial levels to create a so-called ‘tariff wall’ turning away from long-standing practices of tariff liberalization. According to the US Administration, the tariffs pursue multiple objectives. They incentivize re-industrialization, generate revenue, and lower trade deficits with many trading partners. The imposition of new tariffs is coupled with the pursuit of bilateral deals to extract business-type concessions from governments and to encourage investments into the US.