In the archives of the WTO between March 2022 and January 2025 lies a trail of memos filed to the multilateral trade institution authored by Maria Pagan, then-US ambassador to the body. Even as successive bipartisan US administrations expressed growing frustration with the WTO, Pagan made sure she did not turn away in silence. In missive after missive, Pagan laid out US positions which, though sometimes controversial, consistently laid out opportunities for dialogue. As Washington awaits confirmation of her successor, Pagan writes an exclusive essay for the Hinrich Foundation on the provenance of America’s frustrations with the global trading order – but also why the US should not leave the WTO. In March this year, unverified reports surfaced that China had fully connected a digital fiat payment system with some ASEAN and Middle East states. Stewart Paterson examines the implications. Surendar Singh and Peter Draper examine the EU’s due diligence directive’s implications on India's textile value chain and social development. Plus, here’s how to use a report by Evan Medeiros and Andrew Polk on China’s new economic weapons.
SPECIAL ESSAY
In search of a clearer tune: Why the US lost faith in the WTO
Maria Pagan 27 May 2025
“When I started my career in trade policy some 32 years ago, one of the very first things drilled into my young trade-lawyer brain was the importance of sovereignty,” Maria Pagan, the former and most recent US Ambassador to the WTO, writes in an essay for the Hinrich Foundation. In it, Pagan spells out her sympathy for why many around the world feel betrayed by US trade policy, lays out the provenance of America’s frustration with the system, and asks one of the most difficult questions in global trade: “Does this all mean that the United States should walk away from the WTO? My answer is no.”
China’s inroads on a digital currency for global trade
Stewart Paterson 27 May 2025
For the last four years, China has been working with the Bank for International Settlements to operationalize a technology called mBridge. In March this year, reports began surfacing that China had fully connected the system, which works as the fully-secured and encrypted state-of-the-art plumbing for transfers of China’s digital renminbi, with some ASEAN and Middle East states. Among its many features, its most valuable might be a means to bypass the dollar-denominated trading system, Senior Research Fellow Stewart Paterson writes.
How the EU is shifting the paradigm in global value chains, Part 2
Surendar Singh
Peter Draper
27 May 2025
The EU has been at the forefront of advocating global social and environmental governance through its sustainable supply chain initiatives under the EU Green Deal. In this second part of a two-part series, Jindal Global University’s Surendar Singh and the University of Adelaide’s Professor and Executive Director of the Institute for International Trade Peter Draper examine the implications of recent EU directives on India's textile value chain and social development.
The tensions between China, the US, the EU, and other economies have intensified over the past decade, driven by competition in trade, critical inputs, and advanced tech. In response, the US and its partners have increasingly turned to economic tools to counter China, particularly in trade and technology. China, in turn, has been building its own toolbox to respond, retaliate, and further its economic ambitions. Explore our analysis of Evan S. Medeiros and Andrew Polk’s recent paper on China’s new economic weapons.
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