Latest / Trumponomics / How the Home of America's Worst Inflation Got That Way
Transcript
- 0:03Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Stephanomics, the podcast that brings the
- 0:06Speaker 1: global economy to you. And yep, I'll admit it. I'm
- 0:08Speaker 1: in Davos this week for a special early summer edition
- 0:12Speaker 1: of the World Economic Forum. This is the place they
- 0:15Speaker 1: say millionaires come to hear billionaires tell them what the
- 0:18Speaker 1: middle class is thinking. From my experience, you very rarely
- 0:22Speaker 1: come away from Davos feeling more optimistic. And the talk
- 0:25Speaker 1: here was of Ukraine inflation the risk of a global
- 0:30Speaker 1: food crisis. We have some of that rather gloomy talk
- 0:33Speaker 1: coming up. The selected highlights from a session I moderated
- 0:37Speaker 1: featuring Big Jesus like the European Trade Commissioner and the
- 0:40Speaker 1: Director General of the World Trade Organization. We also have
- 0:43Speaker 1: some very clear thinking on the future of global trade
- 0:46Speaker 1: from the brilliant economist Richard Baldwin. But what you never
- 0:50Speaker 1: get in Davos is a sense of what any of
- 0:52Speaker 1: this feels like at ground level. So let me start
- 0:55Speaker 1: this week's show with this report from Texas. While US
- 1:00Speaker 1: Economy reporter Dmitrieva Midland, Texas is not the kind of
- 1:18Speaker 1: place you'd expect high prices, but it's the city with
- 1:22Speaker 1: the highest inflation in the United States. For the past
- 1:25Speaker 1: six months, the consumer price Index from Midland, which tracts
- 1:28Speaker 1: how much residents pay for everyday things, has hovered around
- 1:32Speaker 1: ten percent. That's above even the national average. The city
- 1:40Speaker 1: in West Texas is small, about a hundred and twenty
- 1:43Speaker 1: thousand people, give or take. It's remote, surrounded by oil fields,
- 1:47Speaker 1: and almost a five hour drive to the nearest major city.
- 1:51Speaker 1: These two things, a limited labor pool and remote location,
- 1:55Speaker 1: are sending prices skyrocketing here and in other smaller cities
- 1:59Speaker 1: in the within Midwest. And that's on top of the
- 2:02Speaker 1: supply chain disruptions plaguing every region of the US right now.
- 2:06Speaker 1: Melinda Hernandez lives in South Midland. She's currently planning a
- 2:10Speaker 1: high school graduation party for her son, usually a big
- 2:14Speaker 1: event for her Hispanic family, this year it's going to
- 2:17Speaker 1: be different thanks to inflation. Shopping for is food items,
- 2:22Speaker 1: you know, just seeing that it's double from when I
- 2:25Speaker 1: did the party for my first son, I would get
- 2:27Speaker 1: less for more, so that makes sense. So it's just
- 2:32Speaker 1: it's crazy to me. Hernando's lost her job at an
- 2:35Speaker 1: energy services company in March. The industry hasn't picked back up,
- 2:39Speaker 1: so demand remains low. For administrative workers. Like her, service
- 2:43Speaker 1: sector wages also leg far behind other industries. While she's
- 2:48Speaker 1: getting paid ten dollars an hour delivering pizzas at night,
- 2:51Speaker 1: less than half her old wage, everything else is going
- 2:55Speaker 1: up in price. Her electricity bill has doubled, food prices
- 3:00Speaker 1: are so high she had to tap a local nonprofit
- 3:03Speaker 1: and church for help. And gas prices have been skyrocketing.
- 3:07Speaker 1: Make sure my elector bills paid and I have a
- 3:10Speaker 1: roof over my head, and that's all that matters right now.
- 3:13Speaker 1: Inflation was also in the mind of policymakers this week
- 3:16Speaker 1: in Davo, Switzerland, gathered at the World Economic Forum for
- 3:20Speaker 1: rounds of meetings, seminars, and unofficial holiday discussions. But if
- 3:24Speaker 1: ready to Me comes down to inflation, we may see
- 3:26Speaker 1: prices even going kaya being much more volatized. Raising interest
- 3:30Speaker 1: rates is not going to solve the problem with inflation.
- 3:37Speaker 1: Taming inflation is one of the top global challenges in
- 3:41Speaker 1: the post pandemic economy, but there's a big gap between
- 3:44Speaker 1: monetary policy and the realities on the ground in places
- 3:48Speaker 1: like Midland, Well, it's the best tool the Federal Reserve has.
- 3:52Speaker 1: Raising interest rates doesn't address the problems of high food
- 3:56Speaker 1: and gas prices and the drivers of that the war
- 4:00Speaker 1: Ukraine and supply chain disruptions. The West Texas Food Bank
- 4:12Speaker 1: near Midland has more than four cars lined up each
- 4:15Speaker 1: Wednesday for free food. The line grows each week. It's
- 4:19Speaker 1: the longest since the darkest days of the pandemic. In
- 4:24Speaker 1: Libby Campbell, the President says, food costs are increasing because
- 4:28Speaker 1: of fertilizer prices and how hard it's getting to transport
- 4:31Speaker 1: food into the region. Increased checks at the border with
- 4:34Speaker 1: Mexico means lots of food is going to waste as
- 4:37Speaker 1: it sits in line increasing prices in the region. It's
- 4:42Speaker 1: just the cost of what things you know are to
- 4:45Speaker 1: live every day, and it's truly causing us stress on
- 4:48Speaker 1: our community. The Federal Reserve and other central banks are
- 4:52Speaker 1: raising interest rates, but it remains to be seen how
- 4:55Speaker 1: much that will help in Midland. MMM. So, there's lots
- 5:17Speaker 1: of interesting people here a Davos with grand theories about
- 5:21Speaker 1: the world, But Professor Richard Baldwin is someone who actually
- 5:24Speaker 1: has facts and experience to back up his theories. Professor
- 5:27Speaker 1: of International economics at the Graduate Institute in Geneva and
- 5:31Speaker 1: an author of several excellent books on different aspects of globalization,
- 5:35Speaker 1: which we've discussed in the past on Stephanomics, Richard. This
- 5:39Speaker 1: has been one of those forums where people are getting
- 5:43Speaker 1: into all the conversations about the end of globalization. You're
- 5:47Speaker 1: someone who's charted the future of globalization from a particular perspective.
- 5:55Speaker 1: What do you think about everything that's been said this week?
- 5:57Speaker 1: The basic narrative is globally say is dying. There was
- 6:01Speaker 1: some recent op ed pieces in the Financial Times as
- 6:05Speaker 1: not there's a whole session here because the dying or
- 6:07Speaker 1: is the d global? I think it's just completely wrong.
- 6:11Speaker 1: People are misthinking what globalization means because they're stuck in
- 6:16Speaker 1: the sort of nineteenth century view that trade means goods
- 6:20Speaker 1: crossing borders. Nowadays, if you write anything with trade, they
- 6:24Speaker 1: stick a containership at the top of the article. And
- 6:27Speaker 1: there are a lot of container ships queuing up around
- 6:29Speaker 1: the world. There are, there are, But since about the
- 6:33Speaker 1: mid two thousand's, the trade and goods to GDP ratio
- 6:37Speaker 1: has peaked and is declining, but the trade of services
- 6:41Speaker 1: to GDP is continuing to soar. So my idea is
- 6:45Speaker 1: that fundamentally globalization is driven by arbitrage and there's arbitrage
- 6:50Speaker 1: and goods that was what we've had in the past.
- 6:53Speaker 1: There's arbor grammage of services, which is just starting right now,
- 6:57Speaker 1: people taking advantage of differences in prices and then sort
- 7:00Speaker 1: of trading those way. Exactly, it's an arbitrage on wages.
- 7:03Speaker 1: So it's essentially working from home when homes abroad, but
- 7:07Speaker 1: if home is Bogata, five dollars an hour is a
- 7:11Speaker 1: middle class living. If you work two thousand hours a
- 7:14Speaker 1: year for five dollars, that's ten thousand, and in most countries,
- 7:17Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars a year is a middle class wage.
- 7:20Speaker 1: So instead of having your receipts checked against expense claims
- 7:24Speaker 1: in New York or London, you offshore to Bogata and
- 7:28Speaker 1: have it done for much cheaper and you integrate that way.
- 7:30Speaker 1: So that kind of service, and it's important to point
- 7:33Speaker 1: out that this is what we call intermediate services, not
- 7:36Speaker 1: final services, because final services are very regulated, but all
- 7:40Speaker 1: the inputs, if you will, the service value chain, is
- 7:44Speaker 1: not regulated. So what kind of thing just in terms
- 7:46Speaker 1: of people can make the distinction in their heads. So
- 7:48Speaker 1: for example, uh, if you're an architect, to do a
- 7:52Speaker 1: building in Switzerland, you need a Swiss diploma. But to
- 7:55Speaker 1: design the toilet blocks or decide how thick the windows
- 7:59Speaker 1: will be, that all be outsourced to India or a Kenya,
- 8:03Speaker 1: and it's the architect in Switzerland who's in charge of
- 8:05Speaker 1: making sure that it's good. But there are no formal
- 8:08Speaker 1: regulations and barriers there, so it's only a question of
- 8:11Speaker 1: whether this architect can work together closely enough with people
- 8:15Speaker 1: in low wage countries to make everything cheaper. So that's
- 8:18Speaker 1: that's what the whole sometimes called business processing outsourcing is
- 8:22Speaker 1: intermediate services KPO. Knowledge process outsourcing is also that way,
- 8:26Speaker 1: and a lot of the big Balta nationals called to
- 8:29Speaker 1: service sector h shared service centers to do it um.
- 8:33Speaker 1: There's also these online freelance platforms which will give you
- 8:37Speaker 1: very good idea what's going on. It's like eBay but
- 8:39Speaker 1: for services. And that was something I remember you, you know,
- 8:43Speaker 1: the big book that you wrote the last time that
- 8:46Speaker 1: we speke was about that power of that of ai
- 8:50Speaker 1: UM and even people who are people being able to
- 8:53Speaker 1: do these jobs in the far flung country who don't
- 8:56Speaker 1: have English as their second language. You know, as you've
- 8:58Speaker 1: got as you have a machine trying lation get better
- 9:00Speaker 1: in best of that itpens up that whole market country.
- 9:05Speaker 1: It was low skage, low skilled workers walking into factories.
- 9:09Speaker 1: Now it's going to be low wage workers working into
- 9:11Speaker 1: our walking into our offices. So that I must say
- 9:14Speaker 1: that was one of my better calls. I did not
- 9:17Speaker 1: know COVID what's coming, but I was telling people about
- 9:20Speaker 1: this telemigration opening up the door to globalization and offshoring.
- 9:24Speaker 1: And I used to have to show videos of people
- 9:27Speaker 1: working teleworking literally nobody like you, especially in Europe. They go,
- 9:31Speaker 1: you can't do that from home, and now we all
- 9:33Speaker 1: do so. Essentially we've had five to ten year advance
- 9:36Speaker 1: and the ability to make remote teams in the service
- 9:41Speaker 1: sector work together. So the ability to do this is exploding.
- 9:45Speaker 1: But it was. The basic facts are that trading services
- 9:48Speaker 1: has grown two or three times faster than trading goods.
- 9:52Speaker 1: So it is a simple matter of calculation that trade
- 9:56Speaker 1: and services is the future of trade. And I guess
- 10:00Speaker 1: it's also the case that some of this, if it's
- 10:02Speaker 1: if it's digital transfers of services, it won't it won't
- 10:06Speaker 1: potentially show up in a lot of these traditional statistics,
- 10:09Speaker 1: even the services trade, you might find that you're not
- 10:12Speaker 1: capturing enough. I think that that is really going to
- 10:14Speaker 1: be the wave. The other thing to to to say
- 10:18Speaker 1: about the statistics is they're terrible. They are absolutely terrible.
- 10:22Speaker 1: They were essentially designed to track financial transactions and they
- 10:27Speaker 1: were held by the central bank, so they're called the
- 10:29Speaker 1: extended balance of payment statistics. So the central bank would
- 10:34Speaker 1: find an international financial transaction and if it didn't pass
- 10:37Speaker 1: through customs, they would be pulling their hair out as
- 10:40Speaker 1: to where to stick it. And the central banks, without
- 10:43Speaker 1: thinking anything about statistical analysis, put together a whole bunch
- 10:47Speaker 1: of stuff just to give you a very One of
- 10:49Speaker 1: my favorite examples is one of the bigger slices that
- 10:52Speaker 1: has been growing quite quickly. It is called Information and
- 10:56Speaker 1: Communication UM services, and in there they stick the utility
- 11:01Speaker 1: bits of payments for telephones and all the Indian I
- 11:05Speaker 1: T offshore soft software, as if the utility had anything
- 11:10Speaker 1: to do with the software if you wanted to do
- 11:12Speaker 1: jobs or policy is in many countries don't separate them out,
- 11:17Speaker 1: so it's really not fit for purpose, and it's one
- 11:19Speaker 1: of the things we're just going to have to get
- 11:21Speaker 1: done right because in the rich countries work in the
- 11:26Speaker 1: service sector and will be affected by this. But we can't,
- 11:30Speaker 1: and we don't even have the basic statistics to say
- 11:32Speaker 1: how much. So that it is. The statistics are really
- 11:35Speaker 1: really disappointing, but no matter what you do, you still
- 11:38Speaker 1: see it climbing now. And another one I've been exploring
- 11:42Speaker 1: is to see if we can think about the data
- 11:45Speaker 1: flows for which there's a little bit better data as
- 11:48Speaker 1: a proxy for services, because you can I mean, if
- 11:51Speaker 1: you if you think about it, it's hard to imagine
- 11:54Speaker 1: data crossing border that's not somehow related to somebody making
- 11:58Speaker 1: money in a service, and so I don't think it's
- 12:01Speaker 1: a terrible proxy. And although that we don't have very
- 12:04Speaker 1: good data for that, at least you can see how
- 12:07Speaker 1: steeply it's rising, and if you take that as an
- 12:11Speaker 1: indication of some service being sold across some border, it's
- 12:14Speaker 1: enormous that can I just do say parathetically, Um, there's
- 12:20Speaker 1: nobody in charge of measuring data flows in the world.
- 12:23Speaker 1: Believe that you should do another podcast on that. There's
- 12:27Speaker 1: I was talking to people at the o c D
- 12:29Speaker 1: and the International Telecommunication there's no international organization that keeps
- 12:34Speaker 1: track of it, and there's a couple of private sector
- 12:36Speaker 1: firms who trace the like the bandwidth not what actually
- 12:40Speaker 1: goes through, but the bandwidth. But obviously there's a computer
- 12:44Speaker 1: or a whole bunch of computers which having precise data
- 12:47Speaker 1: on where it's going, when it goes, etcetera like that,
- 12:50Speaker 1: but nobody in the world gathers it. And everybody says
- 12:53Speaker 1: data as the world's future. Nobody's gathering data. A funny
- 12:56Speaker 1: feeling that you could talk to the giggles of this
- 12:58Speaker 1: world and you would find that they had quite a
- 13:00Speaker 1: lot of these days, so they might not find it
- 13:02Speaker 1: useful to shap Let me just make a separate point.
- 13:05Speaker 1: The first breakfast two days ago, I went to Microsoft
- 13:08Speaker 1: cafe and Brad Smith was there, president of Microsoft, and
- 13:12Speaker 1: the Ian Bremer, who's the famous international relations guys, and
- 13:15Speaker 1: we were talking of about Ukraine, of course, and the
- 13:20Speaker 1: presenter said, uh, you know, the attack was I was
- 13:24Speaker 1: hybrid to start with, and it started, you know, at
- 13:27Speaker 1: the same time as the ward and Brad raised hand said, no,
- 13:31Speaker 1: it started twelve hours before the war. Because Microsoft monitors
- 13:36Speaker 1: all the systems around the world, so they knew when
- 13:39Speaker 1: the attack was happening in real time. And right next
- 13:42Speaker 1: to him was the woman who was ahead of the
- 13:45Speaker 1: cyber defense of the United States, and they cyber defense
- 13:50Speaker 1: looks to I T companies to tell them about the
- 13:53Speaker 1: cyber attacks that are happening. So you're absolutely right, it's
- 13:56Speaker 1: the Google's Amazon Microsoft Web service in Microsoft to have
- 14:01Speaker 1: the data. Well, just going back on on Ukraine, because
- 14:06Speaker 1: everything you said is very compelling, particularly from the standpoint
- 14:09Speaker 1: of businesses who are thinking about how to organize their
- 14:13Speaker 1: work across countries and just how to do it most efficiently.
- 14:18Speaker 1: In the conversations that there have been endeavors, there's been
- 14:21Speaker 1: a big focus on new divisions between countries. You know,
- 14:24Speaker 1: if the world does seem increasingly divided between the sort
- 14:27Speaker 1: of US and Europe on the one hand, and a
- 14:29Speaker 1: few other democracies and potentially China, Russia and countries that
- 14:34Speaker 1: are at least not wanting to just to be separated
- 14:39Speaker 1: from them, those kind of geopolitical forces, how likely is
- 14:42Speaker 1: it do you think that that will affect the pattern
- 14:45Speaker 1: of business relationships and even the ability to do this
- 14:48Speaker 1: kind of integration well, potentially long run. But one of
- 14:52Speaker 1: the things I have been doing recently that that's beyond
- 14:55Speaker 1: my book, is trying to develop measures of foreign exposure
- 14:58Speaker 1: of supply chains to that with an economist at the
- 15:01Speaker 1: Bank of England, Rebecca Freeman, and uh so, we use
- 15:05Speaker 1: this these input world input output tables to try and
- 15:07Speaker 1: figure out how much you're actually buying from China. And
- 15:11Speaker 1: one of the amazing things we found is that you're
- 15:13Speaker 1: buying probably two or three times more than you thought
- 15:16Speaker 1: you were because everything you're buying from anyone has China
- 15:20Speaker 1: puts into it. So we were on the US auto industry.
- 15:23Speaker 1: It looks like they depend upon two percent of the
- 15:26Speaker 1: gross inputs come from China. If you do the whole calculation,
- 15:30Speaker 1: the leontif as they call it, the roundabout it's about
- 15:35Speaker 1: so they're going to have a hard time on scrambling
- 15:38Speaker 1: this onland. So they talk about disengaging with China and stuff,
- 15:43Speaker 1: but I think that's mostly talked. You know, there'll be
- 15:45Speaker 1: a few sectors where they semiconductors, maybe medical, uh supplies
- 15:50Speaker 1: and things like that, but the vast majority, the truth
- 15:54Speaker 1: is is that China is the opeque of industrial inputs
- 15:57Speaker 1: for the entire world. And you can't shut OPEC off,
- 16:00Speaker 1: at least not very very quickly. So that I and
- 16:03Speaker 1: who was it saying this morning, It was the UM
- 16:08Speaker 1: I think it was the head of the American input
- 16:10Speaker 1: at Export Bank, who was saying, there's all this jew
- 16:13Speaker 1: strategic tensions. But actually, the United States exports to China
- 16:17Speaker 1: this year are as high as they ever have been,
- 16:20Speaker 1: and US imports from China have been as high as
- 16:23Speaker 1: they ever have been. So it seems like the businesses
- 16:26Speaker 1: have not got the memo that they're supposed to be
- 16:29Speaker 1: separating everybody and so and and just given how much
- 16:33Speaker 1: of the world's manufacturing capacity is in China now and
- 16:37Speaker 1: how specialized they are. You know, let's basically, all socks
- 16:40Speaker 1: are made in China unless there's some sort of you know,
- 16:43Speaker 1: your mother knit them or something. There's because there's a
- 16:45Speaker 1: whole village that makes socks, and nobody else in the
- 16:48Speaker 1: world will set up that village to make socks just
- 16:51Speaker 1: because Biden says, you know, we should separate. So that
- 16:55Speaker 1: that's I find I don't think that. I think that
- 16:58Speaker 1: disengagement's happening slowly, and there's a sort of in the
- 17:01Speaker 1: digital world that's already happened, and we'll probably exaggerate, but
- 17:05Speaker 1: in the physical world, especially manufactured goods, I think it
- 17:08Speaker 1: will be very very hard to unscramble that armor. China's
- 17:11Speaker 1: global trade share had actually gone up quite significantly since
- 17:15Speaker 1: COVID and in this whole period that we've been talking about,
- 17:18Speaker 1: the accelerated deglobalization and even with all the supply chain
- 17:21Speaker 1: issues and everything else, they have increased their share of
- 17:23Speaker 1: global trade. Final question for you, Richard, I've got to
- 17:26Speaker 1: do a session with the head of the w t
- 17:28Speaker 1: O and I should probably get some questions from you,
- 17:30Speaker 1: the best questions to ask them. In the world that
- 17:32Speaker 1: you've described, it doesn't seem like there's much of a
- 17:34Speaker 1: role for this traditional World Trade organization and those kind
- 17:38Speaker 1: of trade agreements. Well, I think the days of traditional
- 17:41Speaker 1: trade agreements are over. But actually the W two has
- 17:45Speaker 1: moved beyond the old big rounds things where the old
- 17:48Speaker 1: days it was everything had to be agreed before anything
- 17:52Speaker 1: was agreed, and everybody had to agree with everything. But
- 17:56Speaker 1: my my song right now is that we really need
- 17:59Speaker 1: the w t O to get the cloud and the
- 18:02Speaker 1: attention of heads of state because the great challenges of
- 18:07Speaker 1: our time, climate change above all, will not happen unless
- 18:12Speaker 1: trade goes on. So let me break that down. Mitigation
- 18:16Speaker 1: will require technology to move from a handful of countries
- 18:20Speaker 1: to the entire rests of the world, and that technology
- 18:23Speaker 1: is generally embedded in goods, services, investment, and intelectro property rights,
- 18:28Speaker 1: all of which need to cross borders. And if it's
- 18:31Speaker 1: going to get paid for, because it's not going to
- 18:33Speaker 1: all be done on charity, there has to be lots
- 18:35Speaker 1: more trade going back the other way, potentially trade and
- 18:38Speaker 1: services for example. So if we fall into the world
- 18:42Speaker 1: where this disc disagreements over commercial matters breaks down the
- 18:48Speaker 1: trading system, we will not get a climate rescue. So
- 18:52Speaker 1: I call it the w t O Rising Imperative. And
- 18:56Speaker 1: we absolutely need G seven G twenty leaders to say
- 19:01Speaker 1: we need this to solve humanities problems. Just to take
- 19:04Speaker 1: a very specific one food. If you look at the
- 19:08Speaker 1: I p c C report and the f A report
- 19:11Speaker 1: that we are going to have an extra billion people
- 19:15Speaker 1: in places which increasingly can't grow their staple crop because
- 19:18Speaker 1: there's not enough water heat. So you have three options.
- 19:22Speaker 1: Either we do more trade and food and the technology
- 19:26Speaker 1: to allow them to do it, or they die or
- 19:29Speaker 1: they move all. The only one of those that's acceptable
- 19:33Speaker 1: is more trade. And if we get into a world
- 19:35Speaker 1: where there's a sort of breakdown us China spills over
- 19:39Speaker 1: nobody's cooperating the rules aren't respected, that won't happen. So
- 19:43Speaker 1: it's I think it's it's time to start realizing that
- 19:46Speaker 1: fixing the world's problems means moving things from where they're
- 19:50Speaker 1: abundant to where they're scarce, and in particular technology, and
- 19:55Speaker 1: that though technology which is answered to basically all of
- 19:58Speaker 1: our challenges, in the future will require a well functioning system.
- 20:02Speaker 1: So I hope they'll start to think of the W
- 20:05Speaker 1: two like the w h O, which we actually needed
- 20:08Speaker 1: during the COVID. It has it has its own problems,
- 20:11Speaker 1: but nobody's thinking about the w h O, where you
- 20:14Speaker 1: send some ambassadors and trade ministers to haggle over commercial disputes.
- 20:19Speaker 1: We realize that these this organization was critical to saving
- 20:24Speaker 1: hundreds of millions of lives. Well, I'm going to be
- 20:27Speaker 1: talking to the head of the World Trade Organization. I
- 20:29Speaker 1: will make check in see whether she's ready for that, right,
- 20:32Speaker 1: Thank you very much, rich Reportman, Thank you. Now. Straight
- 20:43Speaker 1: after that chat with Richard Baldwin, I did have the
- 20:45Speaker 1: pleasure of leading a conversation about the future of global
- 20:48Speaker 1: trade with not only the Director General of the World
- 20:51Speaker 1: Trade Organization Dr. And Gorzia corn Joy Wheler, but also
- 20:55Speaker 1: the Indian Commerce Minister, Pios gal and Ryan Peterson, chief
- 20:59Speaker 1: executive of global logistics company Flexport. You'll hear all of
- 21:03Speaker 1: them in a minute. But I started the panel by
- 21:06Speaker 1: asking Valdis Dombrowski's the European Commissioner for Trade and Executive
- 21:11Speaker 1: Vice President for the Economy, about the European Union's response
- 21:15Speaker 1: to the invasion of Ukraine. Specifically, given the internal tensions
- 21:20Speaker 1: around further limiting energy imports from Russia, I asked him
- 21:25Speaker 1: whether the European Union was reaching the limit of what
- 21:28Speaker 1: it could do to punish Russia. Minister, well, you won't
- 21:36Speaker 1: be surprised that I will ask you a question on
- 21:38Speaker 1: this topic. India has made it very clear that it
- 21:41Speaker 1: needs to buy cheap oil from Russia. It's buying more
- 21:45Speaker 1: oil discounted Russian oil, and it buys more Russian weapons
- 21:49Speaker 1: than any country in the world. The US has been
- 21:53Speaker 1: understanding about India's position, has said they're sort of playing
- 21:58Speaker 1: the long game though, because they believe ultimately that the
- 22:01Speaker 1: US is the key strategic partner for India. So can
- 22:03Speaker 1: I just ask you what steps are you taking over
- 22:07Speaker 1: the longer term to reduce dependent on dependence on Russia?
- 22:11Speaker 1: Even as you buy more from Russia. Right now, I
- 22:16Speaker 1: think we've been very clear from the beginning that dialogue
- 22:23Speaker 1: is the way forward. We must sort out this dispute.
- 22:26Speaker 1: It's doing nobody any good and it's important that we
- 22:30Speaker 1: that all the concerned countries and the neighbors find a
- 22:36Speaker 1: solution to this very very unfortunate conflict. In terms of
- 22:41Speaker 1: India's own dependence on oil from Russia, we have never
- 22:46Speaker 1: traditionally been a very large importer of petroleum products from Russia.
- 22:52Speaker 1: In fact, on an earlier occasion, our Foreign Minister has
- 22:57Speaker 1: clarified that we buy le petroleum products from Russia in
- 23:03Speaker 1: a month than what is consumed or bought by the
- 23:06Speaker 1: European countries in an afternoon. So therefore, I think any
- 23:13Speaker 1: suggestion that India is increasing imports from Russia is any
- 23:18Speaker 1: way contributing to the situation suddenly doesn't stand scrutiny. Over
- 23:25Speaker 1: the years, there have been a friend of India, and
- 23:30Speaker 1: we believe that the right way would be to find
- 23:33Speaker 1: an amicable solution. In terms of the long term, India
- 23:39Speaker 1: has always looked at diversified sources for our petroleum requirements.
- 23:44Speaker 1: But in the current situation, when inflation is at an
- 23:49Speaker 1: all time high. It has caused severe stress to people
- 23:53Speaker 1: all over the world. The European Union and other countries
- 23:57Speaker 1: in Europe continue to buy far are more larger quantities
- 24:02Speaker 1: than India has ever even thought of buying or will
- 24:04Speaker 1: ever buy. So I don't think at all India at
- 24:08Speaker 1: this point of time is in any way responsible for
- 24:13Speaker 1: the petroleum exports of Russia. Having said that, I must
- 24:17Speaker 1: also placed on record that I was personally advised that
- 24:22Speaker 1: there is no sanction on petroleum production, petroleum goods or
- 24:27Speaker 1: food grain procurement from Russia and no sanctions have been
- 24:32Speaker 1: placed on that by senior leaders of the coalition which
- 24:37Speaker 1: has put in the sanctions. So I think India as
- 24:41Speaker 1: well within the current framework which has been designed by
- 24:48Speaker 1: the countries who have put put in the sanctions. Obviously,
- 24:55Speaker 1: one of the very worrying UH counter effects A side
- 24:59Speaker 1: of efects of the crisis in Ukraine is this growing
- 25:03Speaker 1: fear of a food crisis and food short global food shortages.
- 25:09Speaker 1: What what practically are you thinking about in your position
- 25:14Speaker 1: to help governments respond to this crisis. Is there anything
- 25:17Speaker 1: that the w t O can do well? Thank you? Certainly,
- 25:21Speaker 1: the food crisis is a real worry, and it's not
- 25:24Speaker 1: just about this year. I think it might be about
- 25:27Speaker 1: next year even beyond that UM. And the reason I'm
- 25:31Speaker 1: saying that is if countries are not able to get
- 25:34Speaker 1: fertilizer UM to to plant the next crop those that
- 25:40Speaker 1: need fertilizer, then yields are going to be lower. There
- 25:43Speaker 1: will be less supplying the world across the board of
- 25:46Speaker 1: all types of grains and food. UM. If we are
- 25:49Speaker 1: not able to evacuate the twenty five million tons or
- 25:52Speaker 1: thereabout of Ukrainian grain that is presently stored um and
- 25:57Speaker 1: the harvest is next month for another twenty five million terms,
- 26:02Speaker 1: then that's going to be really, really difficult for the world.
- 26:07Speaker 1: So I'm saying that this food crisis is real and
- 26:12Speaker 1: we must find solutions. Of course, if the war stopped,
- 26:16Speaker 1: that would be the quickest and best solution for everyone.
- 26:20Speaker 1: But have said that if we had corridors open on
- 26:24Speaker 1: the Black Seat to evacuate some of Ukrainian green, that
- 26:27Speaker 1: would help. If we don't find solutions, of course, the
- 26:31Speaker 1: ones countries that would suffer would be the countries, the
- 26:35Speaker 1: poorer countries of the world. Now at W two, what
- 26:40Speaker 1: are we trying to do? One is not to exacerbate
- 26:44Speaker 1: the problem by having export restrictions of prohibitions of members,
- 26:50Speaker 1: because that tends to take the prices, make for more
- 26:56Speaker 1: volatility and and and you know prices can spike if
- 26:59Speaker 1: we if we do that UM, So our members the
- 27:03Speaker 1: message to them is to try to restrain. Although it's
- 27:07Speaker 1: not against w T rules. UM. If you have that,
- 27:11Speaker 1: for there's a security clause that allows that to be done,
- 27:15Speaker 1: but it has to be temporary, proportionate and transparent and
- 27:19Speaker 1: reported to the w TU UM. But so far now
- 27:23Speaker 1: we we have about twenty two members who have export
- 27:27Speaker 1: restrictions and the idea is for that to be lower.
- 27:31Speaker 1: So we don't take us a bit the problem I
- 27:33Speaker 1: think are members have taken that on board. UM. The
- 27:37Speaker 1: second issue that we're looking at is of course auto
- 27:40Speaker 1: multiply the supply on the world market. So any country
- 27:44Speaker 1: that has additional grains that they can put on the
- 27:48Speaker 1: world market, we're encouraging that very much to be the case.
- 27:52Speaker 1: Can I come back to your commissioner very briefly just
- 27:55Speaker 1: to ask are you talking to Russia about creating solidarity
- 27:58Speaker 1: lanes in the Blacks to allow grain shipments from Ukraine? Well? Uh,
- 28:05Speaker 1: First of all UH in this conflict, they need to
- 28:09Speaker 1: be clear who is aggressor who is a victim, And
- 28:12Speaker 1: it's Russia's unprovoked and illegal aggression against Ukraine which is
- 28:19Speaker 1: creating the problem. So correspondingly, we are engaging with Ukraine,
- 28:25Speaker 1: trying to help Ukraine to deal with this situation. Obviously,
- 28:30Speaker 1: UH the discussions on different ways how the grain shipments
- 28:36Speaker 1: can be done, So already now we are ramping up
- 28:40Speaker 1: the capacity to do it, and the shipment is already
- 28:43Speaker 1: happening through the land corridors through UH Poland, through Romania
- 28:49Speaker 1: and from those ports, but clearly it's not replacement. Were
- 28:54Speaker 1: also assessing other land options to get to other ports,
- 28:58Speaker 1: but clearly UH it's not able to replace in a
- 29:03Speaker 1: short term the UH UH, the sea roots UH and
- 29:11Speaker 1: and the fact that currently Russia is blocking Ukrainian ports
- 29:17Speaker 1: and this export of grain is not possible. And in meanwhile,
- 29:21Speaker 1: of course, we're seeing seeing other tendencies that Russia is
- 29:24Speaker 1: looting Ukrainian grain from occupied territories, it's burning down Ukrainian
- 29:31Speaker 1: food storages in other territories, it's destroying other Ukrainian agricultural
- 29:37Speaker 1: infrastructure and equipment. So clearly there is a deliberate action
- 29:42Speaker 1: of Russia to create these globals food security issues. I
- 29:45Speaker 1: guess that's why I wonder why we think why it
- 29:49Speaker 1: seems possible that you might have those that safe passage
- 29:53Speaker 1: when the Russians have made clear that they are willing
- 29:55Speaker 1: to sustain an enormous amount of humanitarian collassal damage. Well,
- 30:00Speaker 1: that's why we're working on different directions. Of course, if
- 30:04Speaker 1: there is a way to open those UH corridors for
- 30:07Speaker 1: Ukraine and grain exports h through as the Black Sea
- 30:11Speaker 1: from Ukrainian imports excellent in parallels I said, they're working
- 30:15Speaker 1: on other land routes, beating up capacity, simplifying procedures, administrative procedures,
- 30:21Speaker 1: customs procedures BOSS for Ukrainian imports to the EU and
- 30:24Speaker 1: for transit to other countries. Ryan Peterson, what are you
- 30:29Speaker 1: seeing when you look at supply chains, when you look
- 30:31Speaker 1: at the collateral damage in the trading system that businesses
- 30:34Speaker 1: at dealing with every day from this crisis and from
- 30:38Speaker 1: the other snarl ups that we've seen. Well, we've seen
- 30:40Speaker 1: um the last seven or eight years that you've had
- 30:44Speaker 1: it almost every single year in increasing level of disruption
- 30:48Speaker 1: in global trade. Um. Starting you can go back to
- 30:50Speaker 1: Tift when we had a strike on the west coast
- 30:53Speaker 1: of the United States and you couldn't import anything into
- 30:55Speaker 1: into the United States. Uh. We may have another one
- 30:58Speaker 1: this summer. The tract is up for renegotiation in July. Um,
- 31:03Speaker 1: you've had we had the cheapest ocean freight of all time.
- 31:06Speaker 1: Everyone likes to talk about expensive ocean freight. Was the
- 31:09Speaker 1: cheapest ocean freight probably in the history of humankind. Uh.
- 31:12Speaker 1: Great for importers and exporters, terrible for the asset owners.
- 31:16Speaker 1: They almost went in fact, Huningen did go bankrupt Korean
- 31:18Speaker 1: Ocean carrier seventeen eighteen nineteen, we had trade wars, we
- 31:23Speaker 1: had a pandemic which caused a collapse in purchase orders,
- 31:27Speaker 1: and then the worst sport congestion that we've seen all
- 31:29Speaker 1: over the world. And trade has never been more difficult.
- 31:31Speaker 1: And I think it's an interesting moment to ask is
- 31:34Speaker 1: globalization going to continue? Are we going to be able
- 31:36Speaker 1: to continue to trade or is it going to fray?
- 31:39Speaker 1: And um our system depends on peace, rule of law. Um.
- 31:44Speaker 1: We've we've built like an incredible amount of prosperity off
- 31:47Speaker 1: of the global trading system that is at risk right
- 31:50Speaker 1: now and it's um terrible to see the human implications
- 31:53Speaker 1: of that, and it has me very very concerned because
- 31:56Speaker 1: it uh we look at what happened with the Arab
- 31:58Speaker 1: spring and all these government really anarchy almost in the
- 32:02Speaker 1: Middle least, and that was really the result of high
- 32:04Speaker 1: food prices. And I don't know how to make predictions
- 32:08Speaker 1: because my predictions have been wrong the last few years. Uh,
- 32:11Speaker 1: but I'm still willing to do it, and I predict
- 32:13Speaker 1: you're going to see similar levels of crisis across any
- 32:16Speaker 1: food importing nation, especially the poor ones that don't have
- 32:18Speaker 1: fossil fuels, and that has me very very concerned. Tots.
- 32:21Speaker 1: He actually mentioned the question about food security and potential
- 32:26Speaker 1: what might be considered food protection is um um. So
- 32:30Speaker 1: there is a question, how does India intend to prevent
- 32:33Speaker 1: its recent wheat export ban from negatively affecting food security
- 32:38Speaker 1: in developing countries? And I see you've also limited sugar export. Yeah,
- 32:42Speaker 1: I'm glad you asked that question because there's a lot
- 32:44Speaker 1: of misinformation going around the place. Until two years ago,
- 32:49Speaker 1: India had no exports of it at all. Two years ago,
- 32:54Speaker 1: we had a nominal surplus of two million tons, which
- 32:58Speaker 1: is barely one percent, only one percent of global weight
- 33:04Speaker 1: trade that we had as a surplus which we allowed
- 33:07Speaker 1: to be exported last year. This year, starting April, our
- 33:13Speaker 1: estimate was that we would produce hundred and eleven million tons,
- 33:16Speaker 1: against which our domestic requirement and consumption is about hundred
- 33:20Speaker 1: and five million tons, so we thought we would have
- 33:23Speaker 1: about six seven million tons again which we could export. Unfortunately,
- 33:28Speaker 1: there was a huge climate problem. We had a heat
- 33:32Speaker 1: wave in most parts of North India which is in
- 33:36Speaker 1: public domain. Most people, I'm sure know about it, due
- 33:39Speaker 1: to which the wheat got shriveled and our production fell significantly.
- 33:45Speaker 1: In fact, dtr andengs the fields. It has fallen even
- 33:47Speaker 1: more than what we estimate, due to which we would
- 33:51Speaker 1: actually have to draw from our food security reserves to
- 33:55Speaker 1: even ensure price stability and food security of the people
- 33:59Speaker 1: of India. In this situation, from first April to tenth
- 34:04Speaker 1: of May, in forty days, are we exports increased six
- 34:09Speaker 1: times six or what it had what had happened in
- 34:14Speaker 1: the forty days last year. So we saw two million
- 34:17Speaker 1: tons going only forty days, and the speed with which
- 34:20Speaker 1: it was going we would have had a crisis in
- 34:23Speaker 1: our own country for food stability, food security and pricing,
- 34:28Speaker 1: and therefore it was an imperative that we regulate what
- 34:33Speaker 1: is being exported. Even now, we have left the window
- 34:37Speaker 1: open for countries on a government to government basis to
- 34:41Speaker 1: take wheat from India, because we don't want the surplus
- 34:45Speaker 1: suet available, if any, to go into the hands of
- 34:48Speaker 1: speculators or holders who would then charge an arm in
- 34:51Speaker 1: a leg to the less developed countries, of the poorer
- 34:54Speaker 1: countries who would need that or the vulnerable countries who
- 34:58Speaker 1: would need that drain. Analyze the exports and we found
- 35:01Speaker 1: instead of Bangladesh or the less developed countries, it was
- 35:05Speaker 1: actually being exported to trading centers from where they would
- 35:09Speaker 1: have all the ability to manipulate prizes. And therefore we
- 35:13Speaker 1: regulated it. And therefore we believe this is a step
- 35:17Speaker 1: in the right direction to ensure equitable and social distribution
- 35:21Speaker 1: of any surfaces. That we have a lot of conversations
- 35:24Speaker 1: that people will have been in this week, and one
- 35:26Speaker 1: way or another ended up with um the fragmented fragmentation
- 35:31Speaker 1: of the global economy and the global institutions still function
- 35:35Speaker 1: that they still have as a role when major members
- 35:39Speaker 1: of those institutions no longer seem to be heading in
- 35:42Speaker 1: the right direction. How do you make the w t
- 35:44Speaker 1: O fit with the world in which people don't agree?
- 35:47Speaker 1: I must compliment the Director General, Miss h and go Z,
- 35:52Speaker 1: because it's a very tough job she has on our hands.
- 35:55Speaker 1: I I don't think any of us would end me
- 35:57Speaker 1: a job. Nobody would like to be that seat in
- 36:00Speaker 1: the current challenging times, particularly when she has to balance
- 36:04Speaker 1: the interests of the less developed of very poor countries,
- 36:07Speaker 1: the developing world which has the less the smaller income,
- 36:12Speaker 1: the middle income, the higher income, all within the developing world,
- 36:16Speaker 1: and then the very developed countries. By compliment her for
- 36:20Speaker 1: her patience, for her ability to bring so many different
- 36:24Speaker 1: interests on the table and persevere for a solution. All right, well,
- 36:27Speaker 1: I'm sure she's very glad to have that compliment, But
- 36:30Speaker 1: why don't you help her? How are you going to
- 36:32Speaker 1: Actually you're all helping. They're all helping, And I think
- 36:35Speaker 1: we've all agreed even today in an earlier session, to
- 36:38Speaker 1: look at how political consensus can be drawn trying to
- 36:42Speaker 1: bring equity with different interests on the table. Can I can? I? Well,
- 36:48Speaker 1: thank you Stephanie for eliciting so much love for me
- 36:53Speaker 1: it's wonderful. Um. I just want to say that, you know,
- 36:57Speaker 1: as a peuge mentioned is very difficult to agree things
- 37:01Speaker 1: multilaterally and that has been plague in the w T
- 37:05Speaker 1: and we shouldn't break light of it. And that's why
- 37:07Speaker 1: we need to find ways forward to agree some things
- 37:11Speaker 1: to show that the organization can confunction. Um. But what
- 37:15Speaker 1: I wanted to say is, let's not take the multilateral
- 37:18Speaker 1: trading system likely. You know, people are talking a lot
- 37:22Speaker 1: of fragmentation of moving away from multilateralism. In practical terms,
- 37:28Speaker 1: there's a lot of geopolitical tension. But the counter factual
- 37:32Speaker 1: to having a multilateral organization people need to look at
- 37:36Speaker 1: that is very costly um. And and you know, only
- 37:40Speaker 1: the poorer and weaker countries would suffer because if if
- 37:44Speaker 1: you don't have such an organization, imagine a poor country
- 37:48Speaker 1: in a developing part of the world trying to have
- 37:51Speaker 1: a bilateral agreement with a larger country. How do you
- 37:55Speaker 1: think that will look? If you had to do that
- 37:57Speaker 1: for almost everything, it would be very difficult. So we
- 38:01Speaker 1: need that multilateralism. Lastly, some problems we have now of
- 38:06Speaker 1: the global commons cannot be solved by any one country alone,
- 38:10Speaker 1: and we are facing these simultaneous crisis of the global commons,
- 38:14Speaker 1: which needs the kind of solidarity that a multilateral setting provides. Therefore,
- 38:21Speaker 1: you can't solve the pandemic on your own, you can't
- 38:24Speaker 1: solve climate change on your own. You can't even solve
- 38:29Speaker 1: food on your own, because we have net food importing
- 38:32Speaker 1: countries who don't have the ability to grow their own food.
- 38:36Speaker 1: So we are in it together, and therefore that's why
- 38:39Speaker 1: we need to strengthen organizations like the w T and
- 38:43Speaker 1: make sure we don't take it lightly about its breaking
- 38:47Speaker 1: of all in a part. Well, I've just noticed we've
- 38:50Speaker 1: probably run out of time, so but I did. There's
- 38:53Speaker 1: quite a few questions to run Pietres were various versions
- 38:56Speaker 1: of the same one, which is, can you tell us
- 38:58Speaker 1: how I t and help solve some of the trade
- 39:01Speaker 1: disruptions that we're seeing. Yeah, and so I run a
- 39:05Speaker 1: technology company. So you probably think I'm going to talk
- 39:07Speaker 1: about big data or machine learning satellites, but actually the
- 39:10Speaker 1: technology that take is going to be the most important
- 39:12Speaker 1: in the next year or two is an ancient one.
- 39:15Speaker 1: We've actually a two thousand years ago. Maritime insurance was
- 39:19Speaker 1: invented in Rome to provide security for people who are
- 39:23Speaker 1: going to Egypt to get grain and bring it back
- 39:26Speaker 1: to Rome. And we're gonna need to find insurance solutions
- 39:30Speaker 1: so that ships can go into the Black Sea in
- 39:32Speaker 1: a war zone, get grain and leave. Because I don't
- 39:35Speaker 1: know that the private sector alone is going to do that.
- 39:37Speaker 1: I think they'll end up uh not wanting to take
- 39:39Speaker 1: that risk. If I own the ship, I don't want
- 39:40Speaker 1: to lose my ship. It's too expensive. And this is
- 39:42Speaker 1: where a role for government perhaps can come in uh
- 39:45Speaker 1: and provide some kind of a backstop of insurance that
- 39:47Speaker 1: was we've seen in many other places. I think something
- 39:49Speaker 1: like that is probably the most important technology right now. Well,
- 39:52Speaker 1: like many conversations this week, it's begun and ended with
- 39:57Speaker 1: some aspect of the Ukraine crisis. But in the meantime,
- 40:00Speaker 1: I'm we've got a bit of help, certainly a lot
- 40:02Speaker 1: of love for Dr and gosi Um and some explanations
- 40:05Speaker 1: of of the other relevance of trade policy at the moment.
- 40:09Speaker 1: So thank you very much, speaker. Well that's it for
- 40:26Speaker 1: this bumper episode of Stephanomics from the World Economic Forum.
- 40:30Speaker 1: We'll be back next week, but in the meantime, do
- 40:32Speaker 1: please rate the show if you like it and check
- 40:35Speaker 1: out the Bloomberg News website for more economic news and
- 40:38Speaker 1: views on the global economy. You can also follow at
- 40:40Speaker 1: economics on Twitter. This episode was produced by Magnus Henrickson
- 40:44Speaker 1: with support from Summer Sadi. Special thanks to Katia Dmitrieva,
- 40:49Speaker 1: Professor Richard Baldwin, the World Economic Forum, dr Angrzio, Condroy Wheeler,
- 40:54Speaker 1: Minister Pure Brian Peterson, and Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis. Mike Sasso
- 41:01Speaker 1: is executive producer of Stephanomics and the head of Bloomberg
- 41:04Speaker 1: Podcast is Francesco Needy.