Glamor Economics

Chapter 191

Chapter 24 Section 2 World Wars in the Economic Field—International Trade

Legend has it that in ancient times, the king of a country issued a strange decree that all the ministers of the country should wear silk clothes, but the common people could not raise silkworms, but could only grow grain.As a result, the price of silk rose again and again, and the supply was still in short supply.Seeing this situation, people in neighboring countries all went to raise silkworms to make silk, and then sold them to this country, and many people made a fortune.A few years later, the king of this country issued a second order, and the ministers of the country could only wear homespun clothes. As a result, the silk in neighboring countries could not be sold at once. Not only that, because the whole country made silk and no one grew grain, they You have to buy it at a high price from this country.Immediately afterwards, the king issued a third order, not a single grain of the country's grain could be sold to foreign countries.The result can be imagined, without fighting, a country with no food to eat will perish.

From the perspective of economics, this is the use of international trade to destroy a country.This conveys a message to us: international trade is very important to a country but it is accompanied by risks.

International trade refers to the exchange of goods and services between different countries (and/or regions).International trade is the international transfer of goods and services.International trade is also called world trade.

For any country, international trade has both positive and negative effects.International trade can effectively use the world's resources, thereby providing more development opportunities for countries and making them richer.For example, the cost of producing rice in Thailand is relatively low, while the cost of producing electronic products in Japan is relatively low, so Thailand and Japan can trade rice and electronic products (of course the process will be very complicated), thus effectively avoiding waste of resources.Especially in today's era of economic globalization, if an international division of labor, coordination and cooperation are formed around the world, every country hopes to get more opportunities.

However, international trade is, after all, a kind of worldwide market competition, and its negative impact is also obvious.Due to the imbalance of economic development between countries, developed countries often rely on their strong economic strength and do not consider the overall interests to carry out economic aggression selfishly, which may cause greater losses to developing countries.In this case, international trade is more like a world war in the economic field.

Affected by the global economic crisis, the United States launched a fearless trade war against Chinese products in 2009.According to the statistics of China's Ministry of Commerce, in 2009, the United States has launched more than 10 trade remedy investigations on Chinese products.

Since September 2009, when the United States imposed a 9% punitive tariff on Chinese tires, the trade war has never stopped.In November of that year alone, the United States launched multiple trade protection actions against China.

On November 11, the U.S. Department of Commerce made a preliminary ruling to impose punitive tariffs on Chinese wire pallets exported to the United States; on the 3th, the United States requested the WTO to set up an expert group on the so-called export of Chinese raw materials; Anti-dumping duties are imposed on oil well pipes imported from China; on the 4th, the US International Trade Commission made preliminary rulings on three trade cases involving China within one day, and two of the products involved in the cases will face anti-dumping and countervailing duties. On November 5, the U.S. Department of Commerce made a final ruling, announcing that it would impose countervailing duties of 6% to 11% on relevant Chinese products exported to the U.S. on the grounds that there were subsidies for Chinese oil well pipes, involving an amount of about 24 billion U.S. dollars. It is the case with the largest amount of US trade sanctions against China so far.

However, in this trade war, China has not shown weakness.In September 2009, a few days after the 9% punitive tariff was imposed on Chinese tires, the Ministry of Commerce of China announced the launch of anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations on some imported automobile products and broiler products from the United States; Immediately after imposing anti-dumping duties, China's Ministry of Commerce announced an anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigation on imports of cars and off-road vehicles with a displacement of 35 liters or more that originated in the United States.Since then, the United States has announced the combined anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations on coated paper produced in China.During this period, the European Union imposed anti-dumping duties on Chinese-made stainless steel pipes, and Australia imposed 2.0% anti-dumping duties on Chinese-made aluminum alloy profiles. China is facing an unprecedented international trade war.

The trade war has brought great challenges to the economic development of a country.Because once an international trade dispute breaks out, it is often related to the overall interests of a certain industry in a country, and then implicates the country's economic lifeline.In order to resist the harm of trade war, the World Trade Organization, which maintains free trade and opposes unilateral trade restrictive measures adopted by member countries, came into being. It has played a positive role in resolving international trade disputes.After my country's accession to the World Organization, many trade disputes related to China can be dealt with in accordance with the multilateral mechanism of the WTO, so as to better safeguard its own interests and achieve faster economic development.

[links to related words]

Trade dependence is also called foreign trade dependence rate and foreign trade coefficient.The degree of a country's dependence on trade is generally expressed by the proportion of the total value of imports and exports of foreign trade in the gross national product or gross domestic product, that is, the degree of trade dependence = total foreign trade/gross national product.A change in the proportion means a change in the status of foreign trade in the national economy.Trade dependence can also be expressed by the proportion of total trade in national income, that is, trade dependence = total trade/gross national income.Foreign trade dependence is divided into export dependence and import dependence.Export dependence = total exports / gross national product; import dependence = total imports / gross national product.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is a permanent international organization independent of the United Nations. It officially began to operate on January 1995, 1. It is responsible for managing the world economy and trade order and is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.The WTO is an international organization with legal personality and has high authority in mediating disputes among its members.Its predecessor was the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade established in 1.In contrast to the GATT, which covers trade in goods, trade in services, and trade in intellectual property, the GATT only applies to trade in goods.As of July 1947, 2008, the World Trade Organization has 7 members.The World Trade Organization is the legal and organizational foundation of the multilateral trading system, the administrator of numerous trade agreements, the supervisor of trade legislation of each member, and the venue for trade negotiations and dispute settlement.The World Trade Organization is one of the most important contemporary international economic organizations. The trade volume among its members accounts for the vast majority of the world trade volume. It is called the "Economic United Nations".

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