Mexico in flux of change as it finds more elevated role for
itself in world trade

AFTER more than a decade of neoliberal, trade-friendly government, a new era of protectionism is gripping Mexico, whose people voted two years ago for the return of the leftist Institutional Revolutionary Party.
This was the party that ruled Mexico from 1929 to 2000, and under whose stifling protectionist nationalism cramped economic freedom to such an extent that revulsion towards its increasingly authoritarian ways brought in the reforming neoliberalism of President Vincente Fox, who headed the National Action Party.
But that ended when Fox's party was voted out in 2012 as the mood of Mexico darkened after the 2009 financial crisis and became introspective, no longer able to surf waves of prosperity buoyed by world trade and the increasing benefits of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).  >More
 

US Trade Representative highlights concerns with China's
WTO compliance

The Office of the US Trade Representative has declared in its Congress that while stated Chinese policies appear to "fully embrace the rule of law" and share a direction and focus that is encouraging.
Despite these auspicious signs, US officials worry about policies and practices that "continued to generate significant concerns among US stakeholders in 2014."
For example, the report states that the mainland Chinese government's provision of preferences and financial support to state-owned enterprises and domestic national champions continued to skew the commercial playing field in many sectors, both in the mainland Chinese market and abroad.  >More
 

Tales from the chicken wars: How trade talks ease rules
without actually doing so

OUTBREAKS of bird flu have triggered skirmishes in the intermittent chicken wars between China and America. Hostilities even broke out in Canada with the Americans joining the Chinese in the banning of British Columbia poultry.
That at least had China and the US on the same side last December. In this, the mainland was joined by Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan and Japan.
But that was a mere distraction. Trade deals that appear to be headlined with the easing of rules and liberalisation dissolve into complex bureaucratic minutia and become hard if not impossible to comply with any profit. Few better examples can be found than in the recent developments in the chicken wars.    >More
 

Mexico announces programme to fight textile and apparel imports

THE Mexican government has announced a set of protectionist measures aimed at combatting "unfair trade practices" affecting the textile and apparel sector.
The measures, including soft loans for equipment upgrades and more customs hoops for importers and a new delay of scheduled tariff reductions.
The World Trade Organisation (WTO) condemned similar, but more severe measures, introduced by Argentina on foreign companies, after protests were lodged by European Union, Japan and the US. >More