US Economy: Another drain on the U.S. economy: The long, painful road toward deglobalization

With political leaders and publics rejecting openness in a mannerunlike anything seen since the tariff wars and competitive devaluations of the 1930s.

The byproduct will be not just slower growth, but a significantfall in national incomes for all but perhaps the largest and most diversified economies.

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Another drain on the U.S. economy: The long, painful road toward deglobalization - MarketWatch:

EU in Defense mode on Trade: In Trade War, EU Is Force to Be Reckoned With-Netherlands Warns

The European Union will act as one if the U.S hits France with tariffs and must stop being naive with powers like China, the Dutch Finance Minister warned.

Adding to growing calls for the bloc to do more to boost its economic sovereignty, Wopke Hoekstra said in an interview that the EU shouldn’t sit idly as countries like China subsidize their companies, or Donald Trump’s administration turns against its member states.

Faced with a global stage that’s increasingly dominated by the U.S. and China, the EU has come under pressure from some members to ensure a level playing field for its companies so that they can better compete with rivals that receive a helping hand from their governments.

“It is simply unacceptable that we are playing by the rules and some others just do whatever they like and by state support have the ability to outcompete some of our companies,” Hoekstra said recently.

“If we lookat the airline industry it’s bizarre that a great company like Air France-KLM is competing in a completely unlevel playing field with some of the carriers from outside the EU.”

His comments follow a recent initiative by the Netherlands calling on the EU to overhaul its competition framework by granting the European Commission powers to perform checks on companies that could potentially distort markets.

The Dutch push comes as a new executive has just taken the EU’s helm in Brussels and as the issue of protecting the region’s industry is gaining more prominence amid the rise of economic nationalism across the world, including with Trump’s America first policies in the U.S.

Read more at: In Trade War, EU Is Force to Be Reckoned With, Netherlands Warns - Bloomberg

EU Economy: Euro area international trade in goods surplus € 2 5 . 4 bn ($31.52 bn). December 2017

The first estimate for euro area (A19) exports of goods to the rest of the world in December 2017 was €180.7 billion, an increase of 1.0% compared with December 2016 (€179.0 bn).

Imports from the rest of the world stood at €155.3 bn, a rise of 2.5% compared with December 2016 (€151.4 bn). As a result, the EURO  area recorded a €25.4 bn surplus in trade in goods with the rest of the world in December 2017, compared with +€27.6 bn in December2016.

EURO area  trade rose to €142.4 bn in December 2017, up by 2.8% compared with December 2016

EU-Digest

Global Trade: World trade records biggest reversal since crisis - by Shawn Donnan and Joe Leahy

Weaker demand from emerging markets made 2015 the worst year for world trade since the aftermath of the global financial crisis, highlighting rising fears about the health of the global economy.

The value of goods that crossed international borders last year fell 13.8 per cent in dollar terms — the first contraction since 2009 — according to the Netherlands Bureau of Economic Policy Analysis’s World Trade Monitor. Much of the slump was due to a slowdown in China and other emerging economies.

The new data released on Thursday represent the first snapshot of global trade for 2015. But the figures also come amid growing concerns that 2016 is already shaping up to be more fraught with dangers for the global economy than previously expected.

Those concerns are casting a shadow over a two-day meeting of G20 central bank governors and finance ministers due to start on Friday. Mark Carney, the Bank of England governor, was set to warn the gathering that the global economy risked “becoming trapped in a low growth, low inflation, low interest rate equilibrium”.

His comments will echo the International Monetary Fund, which this week warned it was poised to downgrade its forecast for global growth this year, saying the world’s leading economies needed to do more to boost growth.

The Baltic Dry index, a measure of global trade in bulk commodities, has been touching historic lows. China, which in 2014 overtook the US as the world’s biggest trading nation, this month reported double-digit falls in both exports and imports in January. In Brazil, which is now experiencing its worst recession in more than a century, imports from China have collapsed.

Exports from China to Brazil of everything from cars to textiles shipped in containers fell 60 per cent in January from a year earlier while the total volume of imports via containers into Latin America’s biggest economy halved, according to Maersk Line, the world’s largest shipping company.

“What we are seeing right now from China is not only a phenomenon for Brazil; we are seeing the same all over Latin America, declining [Chinese export] volumes into all the markets,” said Antonio Dominguez, managing director for Maersk Line in Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina. “It has been going on for several quarters but is getting more evident as we move into the year [2016].”

Read more: World trade records biggest reversal since crisis - FT.com