Rethinking Global Trade: Toward Balanced, Fair and Sustainable Exchange Rules

The article argues that three decades of neoliberal trade policy have created deep imbalances, and proposes a new post-neoliberal framework focused on balanced trade, labor and environmental standards.

Since the early 1990s, the WTO-driven trade order has favored large retailers, low-wage manufacturers and multinational corporations, imposing uniform service, IP and procurement rules that limit domestic policy space. This framework, combined with China’s $1 trillion-plus annual surplus and the chaotic tariffs of the Trump administration, has driven factory closures and rising inequality in many nations. The author outlines a post-neoliberal model that would set caps on internal tariffs, impose high external duties on non-participants, and require adherence to International Labour Organization and major environmental accords.

Countries could retain the freedom to use industrial policies, such as tariff-rate quotas, while a collective enforcement mechanism would curb subsidies and anti-competitive behavior. Although Beijing may resist, the United States could leverage its large deficit to push the agenda, beginning with balanced-trade blocs in the Americas and Africa and expanding to Europe and Asia. If adopted, the new system could mitigate the destabilising effects of current trade imbalances for both deficit and surplus economies.