WITA’s Friday Exchange Podcast: Tariff Relief, Trade Deals, and Framework Agreements with Korea, Vietnam, and Latin America
This week on WITA’s Friday Exchange, former trade negotiators helped make sense of recently released trade deals and frameworks with Latin America, Korea, and Vietnam; the potential for tariff relief on coffee and bananas; and assess the implications for international trade policy, trade deficits, investment, and inflation.
Featured Speakers:
Introduction: Kenneth Levinson, CEO, WITA – The International Trade Membership Association
Wendy Cutler, Senior Vice President, Asia Society Policy Institute; former Acting Deputy U.S. Trade Representative, Office of the U.S. Trade Representative
Mark Linscott, Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council; former Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for South and Central Asia/WTO and Multilateral, Office of the U.S. Trade Representative
Chris Padilla, Senior Advisor, Brunswick Group; former Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade, Department of Commerce
Moderator: Joe Damond, Chair of International Trade Policy and Global Life Sciences, Crowell Global Advisors; former Deputy Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Asia and Pacific, Office of the U.S. Trade Representative
Watch the Video on YouTube | Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts
The Role of USMCA in Great Power Competition
On November 14th, WITA hosted an online panel discussion on the importance of USMCA to North American competitiveness, including in relation to great power competition with China. Speakers discussed the agreement’s geopolitical significance, its evolution as a trade agreement, and the challenges and opportunities it presents amid growing great power competition.
Featured Speakers:
Emily Kilcrease, Senior Fellow and Director of the Energy, Economics, and Security Program, Center for a New American Security; former Deputy Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Investment, Office of the U.S. Trade Representative
Inu Manak, Senior Fellow for International Trade, Council on Foreign Relations
Derek Scissors, Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute; Chief Economist, China Beige Book; former member, US-China Economic and Security Review Commission
Moderator: Arun Venkataraman, Partner, Covington; former Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Global Markets and Director General of the U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service
Watch the Full Event Video Here
11/14/2025 | WITA
A Disrupted Global Trading System and the Future of Multilateralism
The following is an excerpt:
The global trading system has undergone profound changes in recent years, especially since the beginning of the second Trump administration in the United States. The all-front tariff war initiated by the US has posed a series of challenges to the long-standing and seemingly well-functioning global trade order governed by the GATT/WTO system, which had represented a stable multilateral trading framework (MTS) for decades since the end of the Second World War. It is an irony of history that these challenges have coincided with the 30th anniversary of the WTO, established as a result of the Uruguay Round (UR) negotiations on trade liberalization in 1995…
Significant disruptions had already begun to affect the global trading system even before the first Trump administration assumed office in 2017. One major example is the paralysis of the WTO’s dispute settlement mechanism (DSM), which had long functioned as a core enforcement tool ensuring member compliance under GATT and later WTO rules. Whenever one party committed a trade violation, the complainant could file a case before the DSM, which would produce a panel report. Dissatisfied parties could appeal to the Appellate Body, whose decisions were final.
This long-standing process, however, was effectively undermined by the US refusal to approve new Appellate Body appointments, leading to the paralysis of the entire dispute resolution system. While this negative stance was already apparent under the Obama administration, the DSM became effectively non-operational by 2019. Some WTO members attempted to bypass the impasse by creating the Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement (MPIA). However, because the MPIA is limited in scope, it cannot fully replace the DSM.
With the onset of the first Trump administration in 2018, disruptions accelerated. The US launched a comprehensive trade war, primarily targeting China. Both countries engaged in a series of retaliatory protectionist measures, adopting a ‘tit-for-tat’ approach. The US notably abandoned its long-standing role as a guardian of the global trading system in favor of unilateral and nationalistic trade policies, prioritizing bilateralism over multilateral cooperation. This further weakened the global trading framework, already strained by the DSM crisis.
11/08/2025 | Sunghoon Park | Asia and the Global Economy
Trade Policy 3.0: Three Scenarios for Tomorrowland
Global trade policy is at a crossroads. For decades, trade liberalisation was guided first by macroeconomic principles – Trade Policy 1.0 – and later by firm-level insights and global value chain integration – Trade Policy 2.0. Both approaches shared a liberal, rules-based logic grounded in comparative advantage and multilateral cooperation. Today, that continuity has been disrupted. A new paradigm – Trade Policy 3.0 – is emerging, marked by resilience, strategic autonomy, and economic security as the guiding objectives of trade policymaking.
Three major disruptive forces have driven this shift: the pandemic’s exposure of supply chain fragility and the resulting push for strategic autonomy; the revival of industrial policy amid geopolitical tensions and the weaponisation of trade; and the growing influence of technology, data, and digital governance on cross-border relations. Together, these forces have replaced the efficiency-oriented “win-win” logic of past decades with a precautionary and competitive zero-sum mindset. In Trade Policy 3.0, success is measured not by trade growth or GDP gains but by reduced dependencies and greater resilience.
This policy brief outlines three plausible futures. An Immunity scenario sees the rules-based system adapt and absorb new priorities. A Sclerosis scenario leads to institutional stagnation and policy inertia. A Contagion scenario risks a breakdown of multilateral norms and widespread protectionism. Whether Trade Policy 3.0 becomes a stable new equilibrium or a transient phase will depend on how policymakers reconcile openness with security, and whether cooperation can once again anchor the global trading system.
Read the Full Policy Brief Here
11/05/2025 | Lucian Cernat | European Centre for International Political Economy
French DST Proposal Threatens US-EU Trade Truce
In a move likely to re-ignite trade tensions between the US and the EU, France’s National Assembly has voted to increase its digital services tax on large American tech companies. While the proposal isn’t final, we cannot stress enough how short-sighted and counterproductive it would be.
The new tax proposal, which the Parliamentarians have called a “GAFAM” tax – that acronym stands for Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft – would double France’s digital services tax (DST) from 3% to 6%. To ensure that this DST doesn’t hurt French companies, the French National Assembly proposes that the new GAFAM tax would kick in only for companies with more than €2 billion in global revenue. This means, for example, that the French advertising company Criteo, with €1.9 billion in global revenue, will see its DST go from 3% to zero, while its competitors may see their rate double to 6%.
If the French parliament approves this measure, the impacts will be significant and far reaching. Imposing this new measure would lead to an effective tax rate of up to 120% on some companies, more on companies with low profit margins. Some of these companies may choose to exit the French market. French residents, businesses, and government agencies that rely on these companies’ services will in many cases be left with no ready alternatives. As the Draghi report found last year, for example, European cloud services providers account for just 2% of the EU market. Moreover, digital services, regardless of their national origin, are an extraordinary driver of jobs, innovation, and economic growth. Even a marginal reduction in services available to France will hurt the nation’s efforts to shore up its technological progress and provide workers and consumers with resources necessary in today’s digital world.
11/10/2025 | Paul Lekas | Software Information Industry Association
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