Trade tensions

Former ECB chairman Mario Draghi recently published a report about the competitiveness of the European Union. One of his findings is that the EU must react to a world of less stable geopolitics, where dependencies are becoming vulnerabilities, and it can no longer rely on others for its security. Most major economies, especially the EU, US and China are trying to reduce interdependencies. One way they are trying is through trade interventions such as tariffs, export restrictions and subsidies. Especially the US and EU have increased their implementation of harmful trade measures. The EU implemented about 500 harmful trade measures per year between 2009 and 2019 but this increased to 1,200 between 2020 and 2023. Whether these trade interventions are going to help the EU back to competitiveness remains to be seen.

Source: Global Trade Alert, October 2024.