Author: Editorial Board, ANU Today the global trade system faces three systemic challenges. None are new, but strategic competition between China and the United States has brought a dangerous edge to each of them. The first is the dramatic shift in the composition of international economic interaction. When the Bretton Woods system was first set up, global trade was overwhelmingly in physical merchandise. Over time, the importance of services trade and, in the past few decades, data flows, has left large parts of global trade under regulated or uncovered by global rules entirely. While this is a long-standing issue, the…
