Why Jagdish Bhagwati is not too concerned about world trade

Copyright © HT Digital Streams Limit all rights reserved. Rahul Jacob 5 min read 27 Aug 2025, 12:30 pm ist Bhagwati’s powerful, yet Pithy defense of globalization has never been more relevant than in 2025. (Bloomberg) Summary, as one of the world’s leading proponents of free trade sees it, the global trading system is in the stretch of protection. Hunting Dish Bhagwati, the great trade economist, begins his conversation by reminding a Canadian professor, Harry Johnson, who had an early influence on him because the readings of the professor were a quick tour of international economy. As a student, he did not understand it all, says Bhagwati, but Johnson’s enthusiasm for the subject was contagious. To this day, any conversation with Bhagwati, now 91 and retired at the University of Columbia, is educational and entertaining. Ask which metro stops the closest to his apartment and that one receives not only directions, but also a story, which is in a more comical way than tragic, about RK Laxman. During a visit to Bhagwati’s home decades ago, the legendary draftsman missed the right Metro stop and confused by a dangerous neighborhood. Also read: Dani Rodrik: Where is the global resistance to an imperialist America? Since the new US administration has decided to set up rates on the rest of the world this year, the global trading system has become a rough neighborhood. The reassuring news of the leading champion of free trade in academia is that the world trade system is in much better form than expected. He rejects the view that the EU was cowardly in its trade discussions with the US. He argues that the EU leaders become ‘pragmatic’ by waiting and watching ‘, which is wise when’ you face an opponent who faces up and down and in different directions Bobber. ‘ Fortunately, Bhagwati says that the global trading system is too integrated for the global economy to suffer today, as it did a century ago when the Smoot Hawley tariffs were signed by President Herbert Hooper in 1930. Although it is too early to calculate the costs, retailers in the US as well as performers have sacrificed to the US to keep a member of the price increases. Last week, however, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon warned that the trader regularly saw cost increases by suppliers that would be transferred to buyer. The costs rose every week, he said, and it is expected to continue in the third and fourth quarter of the year. The rates are expected to cost an average household this year, the recently calculated yale budget laboratory. Also read: Tariff -Onrus: It is not a trade war if no one fights the irony, could be that since America’s developed trading partners meet unreasonable demands, their economies can keep their economies better. Bhagwati says exporters in Japan and the EU suffer the pressure of a trade conditions, as firms cut margins to stay competitive. But by not trying to repay, European and Japanese consumers will not have price increases, nor their businesses addicted to tariff protection and formation that would make it difficult to lower the rates later. This is too often the case in the US today and has been in India for a long time. Bhagwati’s powerful Dog Pithy defense of globalization has never been more relevant than in 2025. His punchy book, in defense of globalization, published two decades ago, pointed out the pomposity and the attitude of a variety of characters, which pointed out Wall Street and Oxfam to former World Bank President James Wolfensohn. His book used elegant everyday analogies to argue the matter for free trade, a strategy of today’s politicians should take on instead of being afraid of populism. Early in the book, he wrote: “If I exchange a part of my toothpaste for one of your toothbrushes, we will have both whiter teeth, and the risk of our teeth will knock out this exchange is negligible.” Also read: Trump trading advisor Navarro’s diatribe against India is self-serving and narrow with the pleasant malice that characterized his writing as well as the conversation, and Bhagwati noted that the British Nro-Oxfam, and others, expressed opinions on economics and globalization without understanding much. “It may not have been the intention of Oxfam, but the way to hell is paved with good intentions,” he wrote. ‘Oxfam knows a little, but not enough about trade policy. Mission creep, even by non -crawling, is not a good idea. ” In Bhagwati’s arguments for free trade and the efficiency it brings, he was critical of developing countries that have average rates much higher than those in the developed world. Impartial the self -serving economic ideologists, as far back as the 1990s, he created ‘Wall Street Treasury Complex’ as a term to expose excessive financial liberalization by forcing too much free capital flow for countries such as Korea and Indonesia. He identified it as a cause of the Asian financial crisis of 1997. He continued to argue that this worldview was the result of a turning door between Wall Street and the US Treasury as well as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank: “They carry similar packs, not just similar ties.” This observation was for the time being because the over-factization of Western economies was not just behind the major financial crisis of 2007-08, but remains an urgent concern. Also read: Rahul Jacob: The contours of a new trading order are visible Bhagwati’s experience of looking at India’s Planning Commission in close neighborhoods makes him worry about industrial policy initiatives such as ‘make in India’. He is worried that too many Indian bureaucrats remain reluctant. In the Raj’s License Days, Bhagwati remembers listening to a bureaucrat who exposed the waste of national resources on the manufacture of products such as lipstick. There is always a significant and invasive, there is a brand giggling before delivering the punchline. He says that he is no different from smelling the Brylcreem in the bureaucrat’s hair. The author is the author of ‘Right of Passage’, a collection of travel essay. Catch all the business news, market news, news reports and latest news updates on Live Mint. Download the Mint News app to get daily market updates. More Topics #Economy #Donald Trump #Trade War Read Next Story