To Trade or Not to Trade Trade was already a hot political button before the pandemic heightened by large trade imbalances with China, but it became even hotter with COVID due to the hording of personal protective equipment. Shorten the supply chains became the mantra but even that is not a clear solution. As noted by Bloomberg, a study by the Asian Development Bank found that countries integrated into complex value chains were more economically damaged by the global downturn than were more autonomous countries, though the difference was small (5.5 percent). By contrast, the OECD looked at a different set of countries and found that highly integrated countries were better able to absorb the shock. Distance is not the distinguishing factor...

TAGS – North America