( EN ) Plenary VIII: Will the Rules-Based Trading System Survive?

December 14, 2019

Moderator John Yearwood, President and CEO, Yearwood Media Group Speakers Uri Dadush, Senior Fellow, Policy Center for the New South Matthias Fekl, Former Minister for Foreign Trade, France Renato Flôres, Director, International Intelligence Unit, Fundação Getulio Vargas

Speakers
Uri Dadush
Non-Resident Senior Fellow
Uri Dadush is non-resident Senior Fellow at the Policy Center for the New South, where he served as Senior Fellow from its founding in 2014 until 2022. He is Research Professor at the School of Public Policy, University of Maryland and a non-resident scholar at Bruegel. He is based in Washington, DC, and is Principal of Economic Policy International, LLC, providing consulting services to the World Bank and to other international organizations as well as corporations. Previously, he served as Director of the International Economics Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and, at the World Bank, was Director of the International Trade, Economic Policy, and Development Prospects Departments. In the private sector before that he was President of the Economist Int ...
John Yearwood
President and CEO, Yearwood Media Group
An award-winning multimedia journalist, John Yearwood is President and CEO of Yearwood Media Group, a global consulting and content creation firm. In his role as President/CEO of Yearwood Media, he advises companies seeking to do business in emerging markets, with a particular focus on Africa and Asia. In 2019, he was appointed honorary chair of the the National Association of Black Journalists annual convention, which convened 4,100 black journalists in Miami. He sits on several boards, including the Austria-based International Press Institute, where he is the former chairman. Former world editor of the Miami Herald. The World Desk won numerous awards under his leadership, including two McClatchy Company President’s Awards and the Arthur Ross Award for best coverage of Latin ...

RELATED CONTENT

  • October 3, 2025
    In this episode, we explore Africa’s industrial challenges and opportunities, showing how AfCFTA-driven integration, green sectors, and inclusive policies for women, youth, and SMEs can foster sustainable growth, resilience, and domestic value capture. ...
  • Authors
    October 3, 2025
    Global economic growth has been more resilient than expected, as the artificial intelligence-led growth seems to be compensating for the negative impacts of trade conflicts. Overstretched asset values and slowing jobs growth may be signaling that the balanced crossing of those two paths will be challenged. ...
  • September 23, 2025
    في هذا العدد من برنامجنا، نسلّط الضوء على موقع المغرب الاستراتيجي الذي يجعله حلقة وصل بين الأطلسي والمتوسط، ودوره المتصاعد في التجارة الدولية والاقتصاد البحري. نناقش التحديات والفرص التي تطرحها هذه الدينامية، من تطوير البنية التحتية وتأهيل الكفاءات، إلى استكشاف آفاق الاقتصاد الأزرق وضما...
  • September 8, 2025
    In this episode, we explore how today’s trade regime shapes inequality through a Southern lens. The conversation sheds light on blind spots in mainstream debates, the resurgence of industrial policy in the North, and the tools Southern countries need to reclaim policy space within globa...
  • Authors
    September 3, 2025
    Estimates based on last year’s U.S. imports, by Maia G. Crook (from JPMorgan) indicate that the average effective U.S. tariff rate is currently 16%, and is expected to rise to 20% by the end of 2025. This represents an increase from 13% mid-year and 2.3% in 2024 (Figure 1). Effective tariff rates are a measure of the degree of protection a tariff structure offers to the value added provided by each sector to a country’s final product, taking into account both the tax on final g ...
  • August 22, 2025
    History offers ample instances in which the veneer of fairness in international relations has worn away, revealing with unsentimental clarity the crude mechanics of power. The contemporary global trade architecture, promoted for decades by the United States as a virtuous system of open markets, a rules-based order, and reciprocal gains, is merely the latest in a long lineage of such illusions. ...
  • August 22, 2025
    This episode explores the opportunities and challenges of achieving deeper economic integration under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). We discuss the potential for boosting intra-African trade, industrialization, and investment flows. The conversation highlights the nee...
  • Authors
    August 19, 2025
    The multilateral, rule-based trading system underpinned by the World Trade Organization (WTO) has been undermined by the unilateral imposition of U.S. tariffs. Crucially, the foundational principle of non-discrimination among WTO members has been abandoned. While many countries have attempted to negotiate with the U.S. to resolve tariff disputes, they have simultaneously sought to deepen trade ties with each other through plurilateral and regi ...