While the global economy is slowing down and many experts are worrying about the rise of trade protectionism, Pascal Lamy, French political consultant and former Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), believes that trade protectionism will not increase in the future.

Making the remarks recently in Beijing, Lamy also thinks that even if Trump may have some radical policies to protect trade, there would not be too much room for him to do so.

Although a lot of people are concerned about trade protectionism, the trade actually has been more open this year than last year, according to Lamy who said that the increase of trade volume indeed is slowing down, which however does not mean a recession.

Besides, as the global economy has established a very complete system under the context of globalization, if the US cuts Chinese imports by 45%, America’s economy would be seriously damaged, according to Lamy.

He also said that compared with Washington Consensus, he is more in favor of Geneva Consensus which advocates that an opening trade should be based on a mechanism like the WTO.

He predicted that Trump may impose some anti-dumping duties on China’s steel and iron industry, but may also act under the framework of WTO.

Lamy also said that Britain’s exit from the Europe Union has nothing to do with trade, but only with politics, which reflects some of the country’s position on immigration, that is, they want freedom instead of being restrained by the EU.

The important thing for future economy is to establish a fair environment for international trade, and not just protect the rights of the producers of a country, but also that of the consumers.


(The article is translated and edited by Chunmei.)