Episode 66: Are the International Trading System and Globalization in Crisis?

What this episode covers

On this episode of the podcast, AGI President Jeff Rathke and Peter Rashish, Director of the AGI 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, AGI Guest Andreas Freytag, Professor of Economics, Friedrich Schiller University Jena & Honorary Professor, University of Stellenbosch Peter Rashish, AGI Senior Fellow; Director, Geoeconomics Program Rufus Yerxa, Senior Advisor, McLarty Associates & former Deputy Director-General, World Trade Organization This podcast episode is part of the AGI project “The Importance of the Transatlantic Partnership in Times of Global Crises” and is generously funded by the the European Recovery Program (ERP) of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK).