WTO director-general Pascal Lamy warns of 1930s-style protectionism

[CHIMO]

The man responsible for policing global trade warned policymakers today that growing currency tensions risked the return of 1930s-style protectionism.

Amid fresh evidence that governments are seeking to boost their own economies' growth by manipulating their exchange rates, Pascal Lamy expressed concern that the next step would be the erection of tariff barriers.

"We have been living with this for two years," the director general of the World Trade Organisation told the Guardian on a visit to London to meet government ministers. "The question is whether this is stable or risks being dented by currency developments. There is a risk and the risk is not nil."

Lamy said: "What should be avoided is a domino effect, where you get a beggar-my-neighbour, or tit-for-tat, chain and it sours and sours."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/oct/14/pascal-lamy-wto-1930s-protectionism

[howaboutme]

1. He is a hack for the elite

The USA needed equal footing at the tables of "free trade" instead of our middle class being sacrificed so that big business and Wall Street received access to markets in China.

I'm all for a return to protectionism if it isn't too late to defend the USA and what was the biggest market in the world. Screw Wall St and the bankers.

[Warpy]

2. Right, he might be out of a job

if we returned to common sense tariffs against the countries who have benefited the most from free trade without fair trade.

Remember, a lot of the countries that ended up with our manufacturing jobs are highly protectionist.

We've gotten screwed both ways, losing our industry while not being able to export much to the countries that grabbed it.

Common sense says the experiment has been a disaster. It's time to change course.

[blue97keet]

3. When the fire alarm goes off the fire doors close. that is how "protectionism"

protects the whole structure or it will all burn down at once.

[pokercat999]

4. He may be correct in that we don't need 30s style

protectionism but we do need new century FAIR TRADE. Which means tariffs on products coming from countries that have no minimum wage, no labor protections of any kind, no environmental standards and refuse to allow their currency to float in world wide currency markets. And if that means grief from China...so be it.

People say China owns the US because we owe them so much money. I say it's the other way around we own them because we owe so much debt, what do they do if we default?