ifo Institute: Biden Presidency Could Ease Trade Tensions
Joe Biden becoming US President offers an opportunity to ease worldwide tensions and uncertainties in trade and to secure the future of the World Trade Organization. This is the position taken by Lisandra Flach, Director of the ifo Center for International Economics, in a recent guest article in Handelsblatt. “Biden is no champion of free trade. There is a great deal of protectionism to be found in the Democrats’ election platform, too. However, Biden believes in cooperating with international institutions. This is a clear difference from current US President Donald Trump,” she says.
Flach adds that Biden has explained he wants to advance a deeper integration with Europe, revive the transatlantic partnership, and negotiate common standards for trade, technology, and investments. This is in stark contrast to Trump, who aims to terminate talks on various trade agreements and in the past has listed increased tariffs as a success of his trade policy. The Democrats, however, do not wish to pursue any one-sided tariff wars and would spearhead efforts to present a unified international front in negotiations with China.
