On this episode of the podcast, AICGS President Jeff Rathke and Peter Rashish, Director of the AICGS Geoeconomics Program, discuss the ongoing challenges facing international trade, potential reforms to the existing international trading system, and the changing face of globalization with Andreas Freytag, Professor of Economics at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena and Honorary Professor at the University of Stellenbosch, and Rufus Yerxa, Senior Advisor at McLarty Associates and former Deputy Director-General of the World Trade Organization.
Have the improved transatlantic relationship and recent challenging events—especially Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—helped to align views toward international trade in the United States, Germany, and the EU? Is China’s strong economic influence a major roadblock to WTO reforms? Could the WTO provide a framework that translates climate goals into trade rules in the least discriminatory way? Are plurilateral agreements a viable avenue to update global trade rules? And as U.S. and European governments push national security, democratic values, and climate policy to the top of their agendas, will globalization itself be fundamentally transformed?
Host
Jeff Rathke, President, AICGS
Guest
Andreas Freytag, Professor of Economics, Friedrich Schiller University Jena & Honorary Professor, University of Stellenbosch
Peter Rashish, AICGS Senior Fellow; Director, Geoeconomics Program
Rufus Yerxa, Senior Advisor, McLarty Associates & former Deputy Director-General, World Trade Organization