AmPhoenixTrade
@amphoenixtrade.bsky.social
22 followers 37 following 82 posts
Trade policy architect.
Posts Media Videos Starter Packs
With the caveat that in some cases trade agreements might run contrary to those policies.
[email protected]: While greater international co-operation on aid, trade rules and climate commitments is good, much of what climate, middle class and the poor need can be done at the national level and below, for the benefit of policymakers' immediate constituencies.
www.ft.com/content/2adc...
We should seek local solutions to our global problems
Worn-out top-down approaches won’t help us build lasting shared prosperity
www.ft.com
Reposted by AmPhoenixTrade
The soybean crisis may have been induced by tariffs, but it's the *culmination* of a lack of resiliency in the farm economy, with overdependence on exports and single crops and self-perpetuating bailouts. Great breakdown from Naomi Bethune:
prospect.org/politics/202...
America Bet the Farm on Soybeans. Then Came Trump.
Collapsing soybean exports reveal an agricultural sector rife with longstanding problems.
prospect.org
Posen acknowledges the existence of neoliberalism *and* that economists missed the problem of concentration risk in goods and services.

He still thinks TPP is a good idea, but perhaps he'll eventually see that it aggravates exactly that kind of risk.

www.youtube.com/live/kNiZYVd...
Surveying the new economic geography with Peterson Institute's Adam Posen
YouTube video by AtlanticCouncil
www.youtube.com
Great conversation with you and Charles!
Enjoyed discussing Europe’s response to geo-economic tensions and global imbalances with Charles Lichfield and Beth Baltzan in the IMF atrium at the Annual Meetings.

Europe is the only bloc that is doing real rebalancing - which provides opportunities and risks.

www.youtube.com/watch?app=de...
How trade, dollar dominance, and debt intersect to shape global policy choices
YouTube video by AtlanticCouncil
www.youtube.com
Reposted by AmPhoenixTrade
If you are around Oxford (UK) I'm giving a talk at the law school this Thursday at 12 at the IECL seminar room. Topic is: "The Servile State revisited" -- it is reconsideration of distributism as an alternative to brutal capitalism and communism. Open to public
Reposted by AmPhoenixTrade
1/5
David Miliband argues that a program that reduces the external debt of very poor countries "is financial engineering that provides a triple dividend: governments can get breathing room on...
www.ft.com/content/f48d...
We can restructure debt for humanitarian ends
Poor and middle-income countries are spending money on interest payments that could go towards essential public goods
www.ft.com
Reposted by AmPhoenixTrade
1/4
Interesting piece by Jonathan Levy, who argues that the current "polarization" in American politics, in which capitalism and democracy have seemed at cross purposes for over a decade, is neither new nor necessarily a bad thing.
@_jonlevy
www.wsj.com/politics/uni...
Capitalism and Democracy Often Clash in America. They Usually End Up Better for It.
Economic booms sparked by capitalism can lead to inequality and then political upheaval. Democracy and capitalism, however, tend to improve as a result.
www.wsj.com
Reposted by AmPhoenixTrade
In line w Aghion’s message:
“𝗜𝗻 𝗘𝘂𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗲, 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗲𝘁𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗽𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗰𝘆 𝘄𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗶 𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺 𝗼𝗳 𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗽𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗰𝘆. 𝗜 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝘄𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗲𝘃𝗼𝗹𝘃𝗲 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗹𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗽𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗰𝘆 𝗶𝗻 𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘀 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝗳𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗲, 𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗲, 𝗔𝗜, 𝗯𝗶𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵.” Amen

escapeforward.substack.com/p/the-new-ge...
The New Geoeconomics of Hard Power Requires New Tools. Will Europe Update?
This piece originates from a request by ProMarket to contribute to a forthcoming online symposium on the question: “Does a Globalized Economy Require Big Business?”.
escapeforward.substack.com
Reposted by AmPhoenixTrade
This piece by The Telegraph on the global race for robotics is doing the rounds. Was glad to contribute some thoughts.

Germany is in some ways
Europes hope. Hope Berlin invests in letting this sector grow.

www.telegraph.co.uk/business/202...
Access Restricted
www.telegraph.co.uk
Fukuyama now describes himself as a social democrat. Literally. End of History presumes a New Deal economic foundation without realizing it's a presumption.
The Neocons realized that Liberal Democratic Socialism is the resolution of the Historical Dialectic.
Reposted by AmPhoenixTrade
The inability of the US and Europe to build an own supply of rare earth refining - knowing for years it was a huge vulnerability - must be one of the most catastrophic policy failures of the decade.

One reason it‘s hard: the West cannot free trade its way out when China controls the price mechanism
Reposted by AmPhoenixTrade
"Industrial policy can never work" edition X.
The 1948 Democratic vision for multilateral trade was to internationalize the New Deal, including labor and antimonopoly rules. What we got with the WTO in 1995 was internationalized Reaganomics instead.
Reaganism - market liberalism without restraint or populism and incitement of race prejudice - is surely what helped get us to this moment. It is an unappealing dream to believe that the democratic future is fundamentally “unpopulist”. Abundance must be populist to work as a re-democratizing force.
Reposted by AmPhoenixTrade
Anders is right. German industry matters hugely for the upstream value chains in CEE.

There’s a reason Czechia has stagnated alongside the German economy.
And people forget that despite all the anti-German sentiment the German car industry is a primary driver of (economic) integration, employment, and export growth for CEE MS. If it doesn't modernize with an eye to the marketplace of the 21stC it will be one giant multinational Nokia
If Germany doesn’t put in place a pro-competitive industrial policy for cars, centred on market building, the country may well end up down the line giving messy bailouts, regulatory rollbacks in response to mounting political and union pressure - only for the sector to wither anyway.
Reposted by AmPhoenixTrade
Finalized my 2025 book tour!

Coming through New York, DC, Chicago, Toronto, San Francisco, Los Angeles, London, Oxford and Cambridge. Click here for details:
timwu.net#booktour
Reposted by AmPhoenixTrade
The Policy Conference moves to the conversation “Trade policy and #Competitiveness: Friends or foes?”

With
🔺Elizabeth Baltzan, US Trade Representative
🔺 @bernd-lange.bsky.social @socialistsanddemocrats.eu
🔺László Andor, @feps-europe.eu

Tune in LIVE
🔴 webstreaming.cor.europa.eu/en/cor/a-cle...
Reposted by AmPhoenixTrade
The IMF too long assumed imbalances would recede.

The Fund is now - thankfully - marching back into the global imbalance part of its mandate.

IMF staff just released an interesting new paper.

“Do trade imbalances boost incomes in surplus economies at the expense of deficit economies?

1/
Similarly in Africa - one of the reasons the Biden Administration shifted away from FTA negotiations with Kenya toward something more modular was out of respect for continental integration efforts across Africa, and to avoid undermining the AfCFTA. Colonial patterns persist.
2/6
If Chinese infrastructure investment is designed to maximize trade and transportation links across the region, it could provide a major boost to overall Latin American productivity growth by turning many fragmented Latin American markets into a much larger single market.
Reposted by AmPhoenixTrade
Folks reach too quickly for the 'Europe should pivot to China' line in response to Trump’s tariffs. It’s a vibes argument that shatters on contact with reality.

China’s market isn’t growing for EU exporters – it’s shrinking. At home, competition is getting fiercer as China exports its way...

1/
Good Bloomberg piece.

And agree with JP Morgan: “Some of this is the fact that China has very cleverly found other export markets, including Europe, which has been a key hedge to slowing exports to the US.”

High time the IMF puts this at the top of the agenda.

www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...
China Floods the World With Cheap Exports After Trump’s Tariffs
Shipments have soared outside the US this year, but countries dealing with the glut appear reluctant to take on another trade war — for now.
www.bloomberg.com