“It’s almost like the timing belt on the global growth engine is a bit off or the cylinders are not firing as they should.”
That’s from WTO chief economist Robert Koopman, and it’s a quote we’ve used on a number of occasions. Koopman is referring to the fact that for several years in a row, the rate of growth in global trade has lagged GDP growth. That’s a problem for two reasons: 1) GDP growth is hardly robust as it is, and 2)before the recent downturn, the last time trade growth underperformed the rate of economic expansion was two decades ago.
As WSJ noted last autumn, trade growth has averaged just 3% per year. That’s half of the 1983-2008 average.
“It’s fairly obvious that we reached peak trade in 2007,” Scott Miller, trade expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, D.C., think tank told the Journal.
Since then, the evidence has continued to pile up that global trade has flatlined. Freight volume in the US fell for the first time in three years in November, while monumental declines for Class 8 truck sales vividly demonstrate the extent to which commerce is simply grinding to a halt across the US economy. As forglobal trade, well, the Baltic Dry speaks for itself.
“It is worse than in 2008. The oil price [is low] and freight rates are lower. The external conditions are much worse,” Maersk CEO Nils Andersen said, just last month. Maersk Line – the company’s golden goose and the world’s largest container operator – racked up $182 million in red ink last quarter alone.
In this environment the “answer” has been competitive devaluation – i.e. a currency war. Although this is, in the end anyway, a zero sum game, until recently there was still some hope that key EMs could rely on devlaued currencies to help cushion their current accounts from the slowdown and restore some semblance of balance and competitiveness.
