Trade policy today faces three issues that are often overlooked in current debate around post-Trump transatlantic and post-Brexit global trade policy: development, geopolitics, and the digital economy.  All three are in desperate need of clarification. And, they need to be clearly integrated in current political science and economic analyses if we are to find a way to advance trade and economic interdependence without in the years ahead. Development Trade history since Bretton Woods generally gives too little weight to the development agenda as it emerged from decolonisation and the founding of UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The incorporation of development logic in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was a slow process. It consisted of asymmetrical …

Accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) on 11 December 2001 was a watershed for China’s international economic relations. Joining the WTO meant that, after two decades of gradually opening its economy and markets, China formally accepted both the benefits and obligations of membership in a multilaterally negotiated rules-based regime governing international trade. The long march towards WTO accession – its pitfalls and challenges as well as the impressive surge in China’s import and export figures thereafter – have been well documented. But, somewhat in the shadows of these remarkable achievements in the field of multilateral trade policy, foreign investment has emerged as another important component of China’s international economic relations.