Lloyds Banking Share Discussion Threads

[stonedyou] 08/12/2019 22:30

2 The WTO can ... settle disputes and reduce trade tensions

More trade, more traded goods and services and more trading countries — they bring benefits but they can also increase the potential for friction. The WTO’s system deals with these in two ways.

One is by talking: countries negotiate rules that are acceptable to all.

The other is by settling disputes about whether countries are playing by those agreed rules.



The WTO can ...

...cut living costs and raise living standards
...settle disputes and reduce trade tensions
...stimulate economic growth and employment
...cut the cost of doing business internationally
...encourage good governance
...help countries develop
...give the weak a stronger voice
...support the environment and health
...contribute to peace and stability
...be effective without hitting the headlines


Closer relationships have huge benefits but they can also bring friction: more trade increases the possibility of disputes. In the past, such disputes have erupted into serious conflict. But today, international trade tension is reduced because countries can turn to organizations, in particular the WTO, to settle their trade disputes.

Before World War II, there was no forum for global trade negotiations, and no legal procedure for settling disputes.

After the war, the world’s community of trading nations negotiated trade rules which are now entrusted to the WTO. Settling their differences by talking and by agreeing on rules is vital for reducing tension.

Those rules also include an obligation for members to bring their disputes to the WTO and not to act unilaterally.

Dispute settlement is sometimes described as the jewel in the WTO’s crown. It’s the central pillar of the multilateral trading system, and the WTO’s unique contribution to the stability of the global economy.

WTO dispute settlement focuses countries’ attention on the rules. Once a verdict has been announced, countries concentrate on complying with the rules, and perhaps later renegotiating them — rather than declaring war on each other.

Well over 400 disputes have been brought to the WTO since it was set up in 1995. Without a means of tackling these constructively and harmoniously, some could have spiralled into more serious political conflict.

The fact that the disputes are based on WTO agreements means that there is a clear basis for judging who is right or wrong. Once the judgement has been made, the agreements provide the focus for any further actions that need to be taken.

The increasing number of disputes brought to the WTO does not reflect increasing tension in the world. Rather, it reflects the closer economic ties throughout the world, the WTO’s expanding membership and the fact that countries have faith in the system to solve their differences.
Sometimes the exchanges between the countries in conflict can be acrimonious, but they always aim to conform to the agreements and commitments that they themselves negotiated.
Developing countries are more active in WTO disputes

The annual number of disputes has declined overall. Developing countries are active, reflecting their increasing participation in trade. However, their share of disputes — either in initiating complaints or being complained against — has fluctuated over the years.

[gotnorolex] 08/12/2019 22:29

Alp....Will have a looksee! had all coffee contracts drawn up by corporate lawyers, contract disputes always settled out of court!

[stonedyou] 08/12/2019 22:28

living standards

We are all consumers.

The prices we pay for our food and clothing, our necessities and luxuries, and everything else in between, are affectedby trade policies.



The WTO can ...

...cut living costs and raise living standards
...settle disputes and reduce trade tensions
...stimulate economic growth and employment
...cut the cost of doing business internationally
...encourage good governance
...help countries develop
...give the weak a stronger voice
...support the environment and health
...contribute to peace and stability
...be effective without hitting the headlines



Differing points of view:
food security

Food security is the elephant in the room which the WTO must address. Trade did not feed the hungry when food was cheap and abundant, and is even less able to do so now that prices are sky-high. Global food imports shall be worth $1.3 trillion in 2011, and the food import bills of the least developed countries have soared by over a third over the last year. The G-20 has acknowledged that excessive reliance on food imports has left people in developing countries increasingly vulnerable to price shocks and food shortages. The WTO must now do the same.

— Olivier De Schutter, Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, “Food security hostage to trade in WTO negotiations – UN right to food expert”, Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights website, 16 November 2011

First, trade isn’t – and never was – a silver bullet. Not for food security or really any other purpose. Trade offers important advantages, and when it works well, it reduces costs, improves consumer options, and assists in managing risks. But over-reliance on trade – either as importers or exporters – has real economic and food security risks.

— Gawain Kripke, Oxfam America Director of Policy and Research, “Finding some focus: Trade and food security, the politics of poverty”, Oxfam America website, 6 June 2012

I fundamentally disagree with your assertion that countries need to limit reliance on international trade to achieve food security objectives. On the contrary, there is agreement among most UN-led experts that international trade is part of the package of solutions to achieve food security. The UN High Level Task Force on the Global Food Security […] noted that ‘more liberalized international markets would contribute to global food and nutrition security through increased trade volumes and access to diverse sources of food imports.’ […] The Inter-agency report for the G-20 stated, for example, that ‘trade is an essential component of any food security strategy’ and that ‘policies that distort production and trade in agricultural commodities potentially impede the achievement of long run food security’. […] Indeed, our members negotiate towards a more level playing field in agriculture in order to enhance their ability to achieve food security.

— Pascal Lamy, WTO Director-General, letter toOlivier De Schutter, 14 December 2011


Protectionism is expensive: it raises prices. The WTO’s global system lowers trade barriers through negotiation and operates under the principle of non-discrimination.

The result is reduced costs of production (because imports used in production are cheaper), reduced prices of finished goods and services, more choice and ultimately a lower cost of living.

Elsewhere, we look at the challenges that imports can present. Here the focus is on the impact on us, as consumers.

Overall incomes can rise. Trade opening since 1945 has boosted US annual incomes by $1 trillion, or $9,000 per household, according to the US government. Two major trade agreements of the 1990s — the WTO Uruguay Round and the North American Free Trade Agreement between the US, Canada, and Mexico — generate increased purchasing power of $1,300 to $2,000 per year for the average American family of four, it says.

The European Union, which, through the creation of its single market undertook the third major liberalization at the turn of the century, says the gains from the wider variety of goods and services available to the average European consumer are in the range of €600 a year, in addition to the gains from lower prices.

Food is cheaper if protection is reduced. When you protect your agriculture, food is artificially expensive. When protection is particularly high — as when market prices are naturally low — the impact can be huge.

Protecting agriculture raised food prices by an estimated $1,500 per year for a family of four in the European Union in 1997 and by the equivalent of a 51% tax on food in Japan (1995). In just one year (1988), US consumers had $3 billion added to their grocery bills just to support sugar.

But there is also a paradox. Protection and subsidies in rich markets raise prices domestically but force down prices externally in world markets and particularly in poorer countries. If reform in the developed world raises world prices, consumers in the poorer countries may suffer, but their farmers receive more realistic prices, encouraging them to produce more and improving supplies within the country.

Negotiating agricultural trade reform is therefore a complex undertaking. Governments are still debating the roles agricultural policies play in a range of issues from food security to environmental protection.

But WTO members are now reducing the subsidies and the trade barriers that are the worst offenders. And they are negotiatingto continue the reform in agriculture.

These issues have now been incorporated into a broader work programme, the Doha Development Agenda, launched at the fourth WTO Ministerial Conference in Doha, Qatar, in November 2001.

Clothes are cheaper. Like agriculture, trade in garments and textiles has been reformed although some protection remains. At times of peak protection, the costs to consumers were high.

In the US, import restrictions and high customs duties combined to raise US textiles and clothing prices by 58% in the late 1980s during the early years of the negotiations that produced global reform — the Uruguay Round talks that created the WTO.

UK consumers paid an estimated £500 million more per year for their clothing because of these restrictions. For Canadians, the bill was around C$780 million. For Australians, it would have been A$300 annually per average family if Australian customs duties had not been reduced in this period.

Reform of the textiles and clothing trade under the WTO was completed in 2005. The programme included eliminating restrictions on quantities of imports.

Even now, the import duties on cheaper essential products can be a disproportionate burden on the neediest.

If customs duties on textiles and clothing were also to be eliminated, economists calculated that the result could be a gain to the world of around $23 billion, including $12.3 billion for the US, $0.8 billion for Canada, $2.2 billion for the EU and around $8 billion for developing countries.

The same goes for other goods …
For example, it is estimated that at their peak in the early 1980s, quotas on cars imported into the US were transferring $5 billion a year in additional profits to Japanese car makers (and additional costs to consumers), who could sell their quota-limited cars at a premium.

Despite this protection, the US car industry continued to lose market share. Foreign producers simply jumped over the trade barrier and began manufacturing cars in the US.

Many other countries have also protected their car industries. In the Republic of Korea, for example, the combination of an 8% tariff and taxes on engine size add about $9,000 to the price tag of a $30,000 imported car.

… and services. In Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Mozambique were among the countries with the highest price drops for telephone, Internet and other forms of communications services in 2008-10. So were Bhutan and Bangladesh in Asia, according to calculations by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). Recent market opening inleast-developed countries is beginning to show dividends.

From 2008 to 2010, Internet broadbandprices in developing countries (as a proportion of gross domestic product or GDP) declined much more rapidly, by 52% , than in rich countries, at 35% . Today, hardly any countries still allow Internet services to be provided under monopoly rights.

More broadly, according to ITU data, regions that have liberalized telecoms more slowly and less fully — the Middle East and Africa — show higher average price levels than regions such as Europe, the Americas and Asia, which embraced reform earlier.

And businesses as well as citizens benefit. Price reductions and affordability resulting from market opening around the world mean that telecoms services reach more small and medium-sized enterprises too.

Tariffs often hurt the poor. According to studies in the United States, higher tariffs are charged on a number of products that are bought by lower-income sections of the population. These include sports shoes, underwear, T-shirts and much more — meaning these consumers pay tariff rates five to ten times higher than middle-class or rich families pay in upmarket shops. Poorer exporting countries, such as Cambodia and Bangladesh, are also hurt: they face tariffs 15 times higher than those applied to wealthy nations and oil exporters.

And so it goes on. The system now entrusted to the WTO has been in place for over 60 years.

In that time, there have been eight major rounds of trade negotiations. Trade barriers around the world are lower than they have ever beenin modern trading history. They continue to fall, and we are all benefiting.

[xxxxxy] 08/12/2019 22:22

David James 8 Dec 2019 8:50PMThe EU is collapsing. It is NOT what Remainers and the EU pretend.We really do need to wake up and see the real EU facts now, and the EU future.The UK needs to escape before the EU implodes, and drags down the UK. The EU has millions of jobless and failed economic regions.The UK is used by the EU as an ATM, and controls UK markets with 15,000 tariffs on goods to increase prices of cheaper Non EU goods. UK consumers have in effect subsidised inefficient EU economies for decades. The average UK family has been paying out an extra £1,000 pa due to higher prices.The future of the EU is minimal growth. 90% of all future growth will be non EU. EU is 7% of global population, soon to be 5%. The EU pays 50% of all global welfare, soon to be 65%. The EU is in rapid decline.Daily Telegraph

[alphorn] 08/12/2019 22:20

gnr - you might want to study it (WTO) a little closer; otherwise you will have to revert to those muskets that you described. ;)

[xxxxxy] 08/12/2019 22:20

German economy going sick....Robert Williams 8 Dec 2019 9:00PMNo doubt the Euro and the EU will collapse in the not too distant future. When the inevitable happens the UK has to make sure we are far enough away to be sheltered from the fall out.Its a bit like the instruction to stand well back once the firework is lit.One can only hope that idiots like Hammond havnt locked us into positions where we are bound to support and contribute to the institutions of Europe once they go bang and are looking around for contributors to help pay the bills.They will do so and that is a certainty along with death and taxesDaily Telegraph

[gotnorolex] 08/12/2019 22:17

Is the WTO anything other than a arbitrator of disputes? You make your own rules in a trade pact & if either party infringes them they are taken to task and fines enforced! Trump the deal breaker wants rid of them! No?

[jl5006] 08/12/2019 22:15

Well Alph
Doom or bust. EU is on the 31aa line was seen to be a 34BB.
So u guess - as u do.
WTO or whatever - trade continues - but under the EU - the bust is shrinking - as they will.
All orgs are subject to challenge - UN and their poverty prognoses about UK - we so bad -
Nato and unfair contribs -

[sentimentrules] 08/12/2019 22:10

Pretty sure in the top 50 they are the top 35 paid. But will have to dig that up again

[sentimentrules] 08/12/2019 22:08

Most successful buy side funds in the world, are that because they have some of the best short side analysts

[alphorn] 08/12/2019 22:00

Posted many times that Trump will break the WTO. Tonight:

GENEVA • The World Trade Organisation's (WTO) capacity to settle international disputes, a core function throughout the body's 25-year history, is on the brink of collapse following relentless United States opposition.
The appellate branch of the WTO's Dispute Settlement Body, sometimes dubbed the supreme court of world trade, was a target of US criticism even before President Donald Trump took office. (More on FT and others)

A shorters' paradise if anyone follows those fools (or the arch fools on here) who want WTO rules to replace EU.

[cheshire pete] 08/12/2019 22:00

Could be diku. Looking to open before Thursday with a limit sell if it spikes first thing Friday. Difficult to know how much is already priced in so best not be greedy. If Boris has a good majority, then hopeful longer term. Topped up in ISA last week.

[diku] 08/12/2019 21:33

Lloy chart is looking good...anybody think a spike to 72.5p coming...

[m5] 08/12/2019 21:28

Whatever your political persuasion go and vote, but don't vote tactically its a wasted vote. A hung Parliament will achieve nothing other than further paraylsis.

[utrickytrees] 08/12/2019 21:28

Relax SR, we make allowances for hovel dwellers down here, you lot still wave at aeroplanes which makes us all chuckle.

[bargainbob] 08/12/2019 21:06

It may if 40 plus tory majority .

[mitchy] 08/12/2019 21:01

I'm expecting the share price to break out of its range 57.5p - 63p ,at some point ,to the upside this week . Opinions ?