This Month
- Opinion
- Globalisation
America’s race to tear up trade rules hurts everyone
The US is growing tired of upholding the economic rules it laid out for the world after 1945. But tariffs only punish consumers and undermine competitiveness.
- Edward Luce
‘Made in Australia’ won’t trigger subsidy arms race, minister says
Industry subsidies used to be taboo in the trade world. But Tim Ayres, spruiking the government’s new industrial policy in Europe, says things have changed.
- Hans van Leeuwen
March
Bidenomics is making China angry. That’s OK
Biden’s China policy is so tough that it makes me, someone who generally favours a rules-based system, nervous.
- Paul Krugman
Xi Jinping meets with American CEOs as trade tensions rise
China is seeking to shore up confidence amid a slowdown in foreign investment, which slumped to a 30-year low last year by one measure.
- James Mayger
Aussie beef exports left out in the cold in China sanctions fix
With China set to remove tariffs on Australian wine, the beef industry says it is too early to celebrate as restrictions remain on more than $500 million of exports
- Michael Smith and Andrew Tillett
- Opinion
- Australian economy
Welcome to a new world driven by supply not demand
It will be harder for central banks to manage a global economy now shaped by supply side constraints. But it won’t all be negative either.
- Wei Li
- Opinion
- Opinion
WTO in the deep freeze as world walks away from growth
Last week’s failed meeting marks a formal sidelining of multilateral trade rules, at least until the world sits down and decides they were a good idea after all.
- Prudence Gordon
Australia can launch a new trade boom with China, Farrell says
The trade minister says that with feuds on wine and lobster exports potentially soon sorted, Australia could aim to stack on another $100 billion in trade.
- Hans van Leeuwen
February
- Analysis
- Trade wars
In the shadow of Trump: how the WTO has reached the last-chance saloon
A summit of up to 164 ministers in Abu Dhabi aims to rebuild confidence and capability at the global trade umpire before a new Trump administration starts another trade war.
- Hans van Leeuwen
- Opinion
- The AFR View
Energy protectionism complicates our ties with Indonesia
Rather than the lack of complementarity between the nations’ economies, it is the clash with Indonesia’s resource nationalism that is now a key focus of Australian interest in the election contest.
- The AFR View
January
- Opinion
- Asia-Pacific
India’s economic growth is displaying Chinese characteristics
The Modi model relies too much on top-down investment. As China has already discovered, India needs to fire up its consumers too.
- Andy Mukherjee
- Opinion
- The AFR View
China needs to choose its words more carefully
Australia would have no motive to confect a story about a sonar incident after so much hard work to restore the relationship.
- The AFR View
- Opinion
- China relations
Only the hawks are unhappy as China relations stabilise
If Anthony Albanese’s pursuit of more stable relations with China is misguided, it’s odd that Joe Biden is doing the same.
- James Laurenceson
November 2023
- Opinion
- Australian economy
Who killed neoliberalism?
Neoliberalist theory and practice went so horribly wrong because governments that put their faith in markets forgot one word – competition.
- Craig Emerson
Chinese deserve to enjoy ‘surf and turf’: Farrell
With tariffs on wine to be lifted in about four months, Don Farrell has pushed Beijing to lift the sanctions on Australian lobster and beef.
- Phillip Coorey
Protesters converge ahead of Xi-Biden meeting
Representatives of more than 100 grassroots groups have gathered in San Francisco to demonstrate against a meeting of 21 heads of state.
- Janie Har and Haven Daley
- Opinion
- Globalisation
Simplifying APEC trade is even better than cutting tariffs
Streamlining clunky customs and quarantine procedures would have an outsize impact on the regional economy.
- Robert Waschik and Craig Emerson
- Opinion
- China relations
Three ways the Biden-Xi summit can help the world
This week’s meeting must produce tangible, practical and symbolic improvements in relations between China and the US.
- Stephen Roach
- Opinion
- China relations
Australia ‘negotiating’ wine tariffs that shouldn’t have been imposed
Anti-dumping tariffs should be scrapped. But they become cover for China’s political retaliation against Australian trade.
- Gary Sampson
- Opinion
- China relations
PM’s China trip cements new era for ties
Five decades after Whitlam’s historic visit, Albanese is marking another crucial moment for the relationship.
- Xiao Qian
