Is this a desire to review the true meaning of international trade or simply a diversion whilst the Doha Round is being reassessed? This initiative is nonetheless interesting for several reasons.
Officially, the WTO would like to improve the measure and analysis of trade flows to evaluate the effect of open trade on employment, notably. Knowing the value added of each country in the production process of final goods will enable the WTO to highlight the benefits to be gained by all from international trade. An initial response to the growing debate on de-globalisation and national preference.
It is true that the production of many industrial goods, from design to component manufacturing to assembly, is now split among several countries. As an example, the American plane, Boeing 747 Dragline: the wings and fuselage come from Japan, the centre fuselage from Italy, the engines from the UK, brakes, electrical equipment and various IT tools from France.
Hence, more and more products are “Made in the world” and not “Made in the United States” or “Made in France”. According to Pascal Lamy, the statistical bias created by the total commercial value being charged to the last country of origin can distort the political debate on the origin of trade imbalances. The message from the WTO is clear: international trade is not responsible for your economic imbalances or your employment problems, far from it, it helps to solve them without this appearing in official statistics ...
The argument is clever, but should we not go further than questioning statistics and review the theories of international trade: international trade models are still – give or take a few evolutions and details - the same as fifty years ago, even though the world has changed considerably.
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