globalEDGE Blog - By Tag: fair-trade

This globalEDGE Blog post is also shared as an opinion segment on the globalEDGE Business Beat on the Michigan Business Network (a radio show hosted by Tomas Hult).

The first two Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) that existed in the world according to the World Trade Organization’s database on RTAs were the EC Treaty (what has now become known as the European Union), which started in 1958, and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), which started in 1960. Today, some 60 years later, we have 299 RTAs in force (predicted to be about 308 RTAs by the end of 2018).

Complementing RTAs in the world are Bilateral Trade Agreements (BTAs) between any two of the world’s countries. These BTAs are more difficult to count exactly due to what can be considered an active agreement and what is considered a country. Given that we have 193 country members of the United Nations along with two so-called UN observers (Holy See/Vatican and Palestine) along with Taiwan and Kosovo (and 61 dependent and 6 disputed territories), the options are almost endless for potential bilateral agreements.

Including both RTAs and BTAs, the United States is engaging formally in 14 active trade agreements. The countries included in these 14 agreements are Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Israel, Jordan, Korea, Mexico, Morocco, Nicaragua, Oman, Panama, Peru, and Singapore. The first agreement that the U.S. entered into was with Israel in 1985, with Israel now being the 24th largest trading partner with the U.S. (amounting to about $50 billion annually).

Fair Trade has been around since the 1950s, but what exactly is Fair Trade and how has it changed since its inception? Fair Trade is global movement focused on providing over 1.6 million small-scale producers and workers with fair prices. It is an approach to commerce that eliminates forced labor, child labor, and discrimination while demanding safe working conditions, fair payment, respect for the environment, and transparency. It is an ethical method to trade and works towards alleviating poverty and sustaining development in developing nations.

The USA, more than most other countries, has been reluctant to engage in trade agreements. As a backdrop, the US-Israel Trade Agreement is the oldest agreement involving the US and it went into effect on September 1, 1985. Since then, the US has signed 13 more trade agreements, covering 20 countries in total with the Israeli agreement (with 18 more agreements being deliberated).

But, during the same 30-year period the world has seen 256 new trade agreements involving a large portion of the world, as registered with the World Trade Organization (see my article in The Conversation). Nineteen trade agreements were in force worldwide in 1985. Now there are 275, with 132 agreements being implemented in the last decade. The bottom line is that the US is very reluctant to engage in almost any form of trade agreement compared with the rest of the world.

This blog was written using a wealth of materials promoted by the United Nations, UNCTAD, and various UN Forums, such as the World Investment Forum, but with my take on the implications and where to go from here. This inclusion of official, publicly available UN materials sets the tone for the debate about UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the 2030 Agenda, funding and bold leadership required, and the worldwide collaboration needed by the UN’s 193 member states. My take is that collaboration – whether it be structured as a series of multilateral agreements and/or regional agreements – is the way to go over any form of isolationism.

China devalued its yuan in 2015 by calculating the reference rate on a daily basis and letting market forces affect the value. For some, it seemed like a good idea to get China more into the dynamic financial market. For others, it’s not playing out that way.

With the Iran nuclear deal and US sanctions lifted, Iran’s market – read oil production and related industries – should open up to companies. Not really. There is just too much bad feeling and economic turmoil for some to engage.

While the cases of China and Iran involved decisions being made (by China and by the US vis-à-vis Iran), TPP has been in negotiation since March 15, 2010 without an agreement. TPP, often talked about, seldom spelled out, refers to the “Trans-Pacific Partnership” and involves 12 primary countries as potential trading partners. Nineteen official negotiation rounds between 2010 and 2013 and numerous other meetings since led simply to indecisiveness.

International trade has become a negative phenomenon in the US election cycle in 2016 as well as influenced the BREXIT. Last year, on October 5, 2015, US President Obama used the “fast track powers” granted to him by Congress to seal the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. TPP involves the US and 11 Pacific nations that encompass 40% of global trade (Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, US, and Vietnam).

But is US trade a lost cause and is the signing of TPP too late to be helpful for US trade? The US share of the Asia-Pacific region’s imports declined about 43% from 2000 to 2010. Gaining that back would mean an additional $600 billion annually by 2020, supporting some 3 million US jobs. Now, other countries are exporting much more to these countries, and at an increasing rate. Why is that?

Economist Milton Friedman once said, "responsibility... generally will be to make as much money as possible while conforming to their basic rules of the society, both those embodied in law and those embodied in ethical custom". Business ethics reflect the fundamental purposes of a company and are extremely important for multinational corporations, especially when trying to expand their brands into new countries and cultures. As globalization further expands, multinational corporations find that business integrity is perceived differently in different countries and often poses a challenge for business expansion.

Mitigating climate change and the shortage of natural resources require rapid and widespread development of renewable energy. As the demand for renewable energy has increased largely in the past 10 years, the number of renewable energy trade disputes is also rising. A number of countries have found that their feed-in-tariff (FIT) programs are at odds with the fair trade agreements in the international trade of renewable energy. Therefore, this post will introduce the impacts of trade barriers on the international trade of renewable energy.

With one third of the world’s poor population located in India, the emerging country of India has been striving to help its people achieve a better standard of living. Thanks to the programs that are provided by the government to alleviate poverty, India’s economy has grown steadily over the years. When the government noticed that the world’s most extreme poverty rates fall in rural Orissa and Bihar, it began to focus on farm subsidy programs, with hopes of lifting the economic level of these rural regions. However, its farm subsidies are challenging the World Trade Organization's (WTO) ability to keep an important international trade deal on table.

Following the call for safer labor conditions in an era of globalization, 17 major retail firms from North America have unveiled a plan to improve factory safety standards throughout Bangladesh. Bangladesh, which is the world's second-largest retail exporting nation and sends about 85% of its goods to the European Union and United States, has notoriously suffered from hazardous working conditions in its factories. Labor groups have estimated that it would take $3 billion USD to raise the safety standards of the country's factories to an acceptable level, which prompted firms from the U.S. and Canada to form the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety. The Alliance's goals include donating over $42 million USD over the five years of the plan, and for inspections to be carried out in the estimated 500 factories that the North American retailers use in Bangladesh.

With growing food and energy prices worldwide, it may be surprising to hear that some consumers are willing to pay more for certain food products. This is the case in the United Kingdom where sales of fairly traded products have beaten the trend of decline in the retail market and have grown by 12 percent this past year. Fairtrade products have higher prices than normal food products but in return consumers feel socially responsible as Fairtrade goods are marked with higher environmental standards. Perhaps more importantly, these fairly traded food products ensure that producers in developing countries are paid properly for their hard work while also promoting better trading conditions between global businesses.

Mining for gold has traditionally been viewed as a toxic business that harms the environment leaving mercury and other harsh chemicals in the atmosphere. However, this view is beginning to change as gold mining practices turn to fair trade. The new fair trade standards set social, environmental, and economic measures to eliminate child labor and minimize the use of toxic chemicals such as mercury and cyanide. The major goal of this movement is to avoid the negative impacts that mining causes in the environment while also aiming to help the millions of people who depend on the gold mining industry for employment.

The Democratic Republic of Congo is Africa’s largest tin producer and accounts for 5-7% of the world output. However, recent campaigns from rights groups and governments claiming that conflict minerals are being traded have adversely affected sales in the region. The Congolese government has dealt with this by withdrawing their military from the Bisie mine, the nation’s largest tin mine. Removing military units allows the North Kivu provincial mining department to take control of the mine in order to increase the amount of conflict-free minerals. 

Today, many people buy produce at a local grocery store but newly designed agriculture programs are looking to change this typical consumer trend. Members of community-supported agriculture programs, known as C.S.A’s, have their fruits and vegetables delivered directly to their homes or neighborhoods. This direct grower-to-consumer relationship has had success on a local scale and now the program will test itself by entering the global marketplace.

Retailers around the world are beginning to test new strategies that are designed to strengthen their brand and increase their relevance to customers. One strategy that is gaining increasing popularity around the world is Fast Fashion – read more about it in February's Newsletter.  Another strategy being used by clothing manufacturers is producing their products using Fair Trade principles.

In the past few years, there has been a lot of speculation on companies’ labor and environmental standards. Consumers are finding it more and more important to buy from companies that are responsible with their resources and that are careful not to exploit developing countries and low wage workers. Corporate responsibility is a term that is often used to describe these obligations that corporations have to workers and their families, to consumers, to investors, and to the natural environment. Since this has become more of a priority worldwide, it has exposed several companies that have taken advantage of workers and the environment in the past. Luckily, many companies are making a big effort to improve their standards.