Trump Wins: G-20 Drops 'Anti-Protectionist, Free-Trade, & Climate-Change Funding' Pledge

The world’s financial leaders are unlikely to endorse free trade and reject protectionism in their communique on Saturday because they have been unable to find a wording that would suit a more protectionist United States, G20 officials said.

This would break with a decade-old tradition among the finance ministers and central bankers of the world’s 20 top economies (G20), who over the years have repeatedly rejected protectionism and endorsed free trade.

But the new administration in the United States is considering trade measures to curb imports with a border tax and would not agree to repeat the formulations used by previous G20 communiques, clashing with China and Europe, the officials said.

“Unless there is a last minute miracle, there is no agreement on trade,” one official, who declined to be named, told Reuters.  “This is not a good outcome of the meeting,” a G20 delegate quoted Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann as saying.

In a partial face-saving move, as The FT details, G20 finance ministers meeting in the German resort town of Baden-Baden noted the importance of trade to the global economy, but dropped tougher language from last year that vowed to “resist all forms of protectionism”.

The new communique said: “We are working to strengthen the contribution of trade to our economies. We will strive to reduce excessive global imbalances, promote greater inclusiveness and fairness and reduce inequality in our pursuit of economic growth.”

The watered-down commitments on free trade reflected the anti-globalisation mood that Donald Trump has brought to Washington and came in the first G20 meetings between Steven Mnuchin, the new US Treasury Secretary, and his foreign counterparts.

US Treasury Secretary Mnuchin spoke to reporters after the meeting:

• *MNUCHIN: LOOKING FORWARD TO WORKING CLOSELY W/ G-20 COLLEAGUES
• *MNUCHIN: CONFIDENT U.S. CAN WORK CONSTRUCTIVELY WITH PARTNERS
• *MNUCHIN: U.S. BELIEVES IN FREE, BALANCED TRADE
• *MNUCHIN SAYS WILL LOOK AT TRADE SURPLUSES WITH VIEW TO CORRECT
• *MNUCHIN SAYS MULTILATERAL AGREEMENTS HAVE VERY IMPORTANT PLACE
• *MNUCHIN SAYS U.S. WANTS TO RE-EXAMINE TRADE DEALS INCL. NAFTA
• *MNUCHIN: U.S. BELIEVES IN APPROPRIATE REGULATION
• *MNUCHIN SAYS IMPORTANT BANKS CAN PROVIDE LIQUIDITY IN MARKETS

Reuters also points out another potential win for Trump as the communique will also drop a reference, used by the G20 last year, on the readiness to finance climate change as agreed in Paris in 2015 because of opposition from the United States and Saudi Arabia.

Trump has called global warming a “hoax” concocted by China to hurt U.S. industry and vowed to scrap the Paris climate accord aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

Trump’s administration on Thursday proposed a 31 percent cut to the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget as the White House seeks to eliminate climate change programs and trim initiatives to protect air and water quality.

Asked about climate change funding, Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s budget director, said on Thursday, “We consider that to be a waste of money.”

The G20 do agree, however, to show continuity in their foreign exchange policies, using phrases from the past on foreign exchange markets.
As we noted earlier, needless to say, such an acrimonous end to the weekend’s summit would likely result in a surge in FX volatility when markets open for trading late on Sunday, reflecting the new state of global trade flux, in which the future of the US Dollar is completely unknown, and reflecting the emerging chaos over the future parameters of trade.

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