Manufacturing Strategy in Today’s Volatile Trade Environment
Brexit, TPP, NAFTA’s evolution, China’s Belt & Road initiative (and others) are disrupting traditional WTO-based trading and offer opportunities. Both manufacturers and companies that rely on them (e.g. Apple) need to adjust to an emerging environment of volatile...
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Regional blocs, or proprietary trading blocs?
The EU appears to be trying to build a “proprietary trading bloc” to advantage members and disadvantage outsiders. In such a trading arrangement, the bloc is dominated by a leading member, and can be used in mercantilist contests against other major economies. Read more on
read moreIs the global open trade regime collapsing into regional blocs?
Richard Baldwin, President of the Centre for Economic Policy Research, has argued that “regional trade liberalisation [is sweeping] the globe like wildfire”. Preferential trade agreements (PTAs) have increased from 20 in 1990 to close to 300 today. This has become a...
read moreThe Month of March for Trade Relations
Uncertainty about the future of the global economy has roiled stock markets in recent weeks (not to mention the operations of global companies), but what’s scheduled to hit in March could be worse than anything we’ve seen so far. To start, a last minute reprieve just...
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Is “industry benchmarking” even possible?
Companies often want to know how they compare to their peers, especially when they suspect they are leading or lagging. For example, perhaps you want to know how your performance metrics compare to others’ in the industry — if yours are better than the industry norm,...
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In US-China Trade War, Is India the Winner?
US-China trade tensions are mounting, with fears of a trade war roiling markets. Yet so far, tariffs have mostly been threatened but not yet imposed, except for some US steel, aluminum, and solar panel tariffs. It’s reminiscent of the “Phoney War” of the late 1930s,...
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