A New Trend in International Trade Policy

Abstract

The thesis of this paper is that an important period, perhaps an era, in international trade policy has come to an end. But a new one has not yet started, and so a temporal vacuum has thus developed, where international trade relations are drifting dangerously without a clear course and where the instruments are lacking with which to maintain any course which would be consistent with the changed demands of economic realities of today. This is to say that the world trade relations are currently guided by policies which have, to a great extent, outlived their usefulness and that the new policies which are needed are yet to be formulated and implemented. This vacuum is a natural spawning ground for unscrupulous forces which can distort and debase transboundary business relations. It is, therefore, incumbent upon the business community as a whole, but especially upon the foreign trade circles, to lucidify the issues and to generate the action which is needed to redirect and redesign the basic policies governing international trade relations; and, even more importantly, to generate the force that would keep the pace and provide the forward motion that is needed if the lack of policy is not to become a trade barrier in itself.