Australian Trade Minister Simon Birmingham and APEC Secretariat Executive Director Rebecca Fatima Sta Maria discussed the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on international trade and supply chains on Thursday 30 April at the invitation of the Bruegel research institute. During this exchange, the participants broadly underlined their commitment to an open and multilateral trading system, organised around the World Trade Organization (WTO) at its centre.
Nevertheless, in this time of pandemic, state intervention in international trade has broken international value chains, undermining the idea of global interdependence.
These measures, taken in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, must be defined by subject area and remain temporary in nature, Ms Sta Maria warned in particular. However, as long as no vaccine is available, these provisions could be extended indefinitely, participants were concerned.
Can the WTO cope? Its task is made more complex by the number and plurality of its members, stressed Professor André Sapir, a researcher at Bruegel. This may be an opportunity to increase the number of plurilateral solutions within the European Commission, which is, moreover, being promoted by the European Commission.
Finally, while the parties agreed that global climate ambitions should not be undermined by the coronavirus crisis, particularly in the transport sector, “we are in for a serious debate” on how to reconcile the trade and climate agendas, Mr Sapir warned.
“Climate, like Covid, requires international cooperation”, he said, calling for “a new type of cooperation” on these issues. Original version in French by Hermine Donceel)