Trade, Development, and New Trends in International Law

Show Notes

World Trade and Investment Law Reimagined: A Progressive Agenda for an Inclusive Globalization, Edited by Alvaro Santos, Chantal Thomas, David Trubek

Trade and Poverty Reduction: New Evidence of Impacts in Developing Countries, Joint Publication by the World Bank Group and the World Trade Organization, 2018

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Transcript

Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors. Please check the audio before quoting in print and write yeutterinstitute@unl.edu to report any errors. Transcripts will be posted within one week of the show.

Jill O'Donnell: Welcome to Trade Matters, a podcast of the Clayton Yeutter Institute of International Trade and Finance at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. I'm Jill O'Donnell. Our guest today is Katrin Kuhlmann, visiting professor at Georgetown University Law Center and president and founder of New Markets Lab. Katrin, thanks so much for being with us today on Trade Matters.

Katrin Kuhlmann: It's my pleasure. Thank you, Jill.

Jill O'Donnell: Yes. So, as you know, trade has dominated headlines for almost two years now. We hear a lot about US-China trade tensions, retaliatory tariffs, the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, a potential US-Japan deal. But now I think it's also a really good time to talk about other dynamics that we don't hear quite as much about but are still really important. You're very experienced in working in the area of trade and development. You've done a lot of work in Africa, so that's where we're going to focus today. And international trade is, as you really know very well, is often referenced as an important engine of growth, economic growth and development.

So let's start just by defining some terms and what we even mean by the word 'development' in this context. In conversations that you and I have had before, you've said that development is everywhere, even in the United States. So let's just start by delving into what is development and what does it look like? So if you could just address that for a few minutes.

Katrin Kuhlmann: Well, I think it's a fantastic question. And this is something that is coming up more and more in the conversations about trade right now. So I think that it's spot on to start with this. And development can mean different things in different contexts, obviously. There's been a lot of conversation in the US in particular about jobs, about adjustment on trade. That is something that is part of the conversation on development in any community or any context. Who benefits from the rules, how inclusive is the system? I think those are some of the things that would fall under the umbrella of development. But I think it's interesting because, as I said, development doesn't always mean the same thing to each and every person. So I teach a course on trade and development at Georgetown Law School and I've been teaching the same course since 2008. And every semester, one of the first things that I do with my students is to have them define development for the purposes of everything that we're going to explore over the course of the semester. Before we even start getting into where trade and development intersect, we try to, for ourselves, identify what development is. And we look at different things. We look at the economics of it. What does it mean for an economy to develop? Does that mean diversification, expanding capabilities and skills? Generally, yes. All of those things fall within development. Does it mean that we have to look at the sustainable development goals? Again, I think yes. And I think the sustainable development goals have provided a really good prism through which to view development across the board. And for us studying law, of course, it's very helpful to have them too, because it really helps us to think about law in that context.

But I think that one of the things that we always wind up with, and this is one of the places again where I feel like in addition to kind of these areas that I identified before, these different approaches and different areas of concern, I think one of the things that we always come back to, too, is that development is dynamic. And it necessarily implies change. Movement away from the status quo. Some kind of a forward-looking approach. And so every semester we wind up there, too, thinking that, okay, if what we're talking about is development, we have to think about how trade can be used as a way to propel things forward, not just to capture what we have now. And I think this is really important for lawyers to think about, too, because as we're thinking about how to shape law going forward, we really do need to think about it in this, A, in this more dynamic context, but also in terms of inclusivity and who can benefit. Who participates in rulemaking? How do those things have an impact? Do people know what the rules are? Do they know how they shape their lives? And this is particularly fitting, I think, given Georgetown's Jesuit foundation, I think it's just particularly fitting given the conversation on trade. And again, I think that is something that really has to happen everywhere. I think it's part of the conversation on trade that has to happen in every community around the world.

Jill O'Donnell: And following up on that for a moment, where do you see that conversation happening in a way that seems productive?

Katrin Kuhlmann: In terms of geographically or substantively?

Jill O'Donnell: Yes. Right. So actually both, geographically and substantively. Is there a certain place where you see that conversation unfolding in a way that is producing positive benefits for people or has strong potential to do so?

Katrin Kuhlmann: Well, I think it's happening in different ways in different places. One of the things that I know that we were going to talk about a little bit, and so I don't want to jump ahead too much to this, is different models for trade and development and different models for how international economic law is emerging. And one of the things that I've been following very closely is what's happening right now in Sub-Saharan Africa, or in Africa as a continent I should say, not just in Sub-Saharan Africa, even. And there, I think there is a real focus on harnessing the power of trade to generate economic development and an excitement around trade in a way that I think is somewhat unprecedented in many parts of the world. Certainly I think in the United States and Europe, there seems to be a bit of a withdrawal trade and from these integrated global markets. Even though I think it's the markets themselves are becoming more and more integrated, whether the politics match that or not. But I think in parts of the world like Africa, I think that there's this real enthusiasm right now around trade and really harnessing the potential. And then I certainly think China, which has its own model, which I hope we'll talk about a bit more, and India, but a lot of other countries as well. I just think, though, that development has so many different dimensions to it and it's difficult sometimes to get them all to work at the same time or in a way that's really going to produce results. And I think that's one of the challenges that we face in trade, is how to make sure that development is really going to lead to something that has an impact.

Jill O'Donnell: Mm-hmm (affirmative). So considering the excitement and enthusiasm around trade, particularly in Africa that you just mentioned, and the link between trade and economic development, how strongly can you draw that link? How do new opportunities for trading create higher levels of economic growth and reduce poverty potentially?

Katrin Kuhlmann: Well, I think that question of the link between trade and poverty reduction again is a very interesting one. And it's not an easy question either, but it is something that's getting more and more of a focus. Overall, global poverty levels have gone down. I think that's something that is pretty astonishing, just to see the change in global poverty levels overall, and trade has definitely been a big factor in that. But I think that the distribution patterns may remain an issue. The inclusivity of trade, who benefits really the most? Is this something that has a broad based benefit across the societies or is it something that's really heavily concentrated in certain sectors or certain parts of the population? And how can we use trade and development policies to address some of these disparities? So I think that this is something again that really deserves much greater focus. There's a study that came out last year from the World Bank and the WTO on the evidence of the impact that trade has on poverty reduction in developing countries. And it followed on to an earlier study by the same two institutions that found that trade growth alone was not sufficient to end extreme poverty. And a couple of the factors that they found really played a role in that were some of these particularities that really tend to impact impoverished communities. A real kind of remote location. Concentration in rural areas, distance from cities, a high degree of informality in the markets so that having a change in formal trade didn't really translate to the day to day lives of those who are really operating outside of that system. And this is something, incidentally, that a group of my students worked on last year. And really we're trying to think about, as lawyers, whether advising small businesses on what legal implications there are of engaging in the economy needed to sort of be a follow on to whether or not to become what the benefits, the pros and cons, were of switching from an informal business to a formal business. And I think it's something again that not everybody thinks about because they really are sort of two different worlds, I think, in many ways and in many places.

Gender inequality I think is another factor that really has an impact. And then just the fragility of certain States or the differences between different communities, different parts of the population. So it was interesting to see a study that really took some of these things into account. And some of the recommendations that came out of it I thought were interesting too, that one way to intervene and to try to address some of those things is to lower the costs of having more integrated markets to improve the enabling environment, which of course is something that my work focuses on a great deal. To really look at the poverty impact of policies and how trade is going to really affect those who are living in poverty, and then improving data and ways to manage and mitigate risks. And so, I don't know, I found that that really resonated and it was nice to see a study on trade that went into that level of detail. And some of these are things that I've been focused on a lot through the nonprofit that I founded, the new markets lab, where we really tried to think about the role of the enabling environment and the policy environment taken through some of these lenses. So not just approaching the enabling environment sort of for the sake of law itself, but thinking about it in a way that is more tailored to the different circumstances that we've seen in some of the places where we've worked. So I think it's great that there's more of a focus on this. I do think that one of the things that came out of that study and every other study that I've seen on this too, is that we really do need better data. We need a better way of really understanding at a more differentiated level with the impact of trade could be.

Jill O'Donnell: So following up on that, you've spoken about the enabling environment and the policy environment and the work that you've done in those areas. And we know that free trade agreements, for example, create new opportunities on paper, but there must be a lot of follow-up work done to take advantage of those opportunities and infrastructure in place, roads, ports, even rules, laws, policies. So what are some of the special challenges you've seen in the developing countries in which you've worked, in terms of what the challenges are that they might in implementing new trade agreements or taking advantage of new opportunities for trading? What's holding them back and what can be done about that, from what you've seen?

Katrin Kuhlmann: I think that's another great question and that's definitely also something that... The focus in trade discussions has shifted a great deal, I would say, over the last decade plus into looking at some more of the supply side constraints and the need for capacity building and adjustment. And you're right, the areas of focus can range from policy and regulatory challenges and capacity building to negotiating capacity to the actual infrastructure of trade. And it's been great to see a lot of focus on building capacity in these areas and putting development assistance into these areas. Everything from very technical assistance on trade to, as I said before, focusing on the negotiations themselves or developing trade strategies or implementing the rules, to building productive capacity. One of the things that I think tends to come up so often in the conversation on development, going back to what we were talking about before, regardless of where we're thinking about the impact that trade can have on development, is whether economies can diversify, and how do they grow in a changing global economy, and what does that mean and just diversification now mean the same thing that it did years ago? I think that there's been some really interesting work looking at this and basically concluding that no, it's not exactly going to be the same. There economic path now is probably going to be different. It's probably going to include a lot more services and elements of the digital economy, which I think are really exciting and present a lot of potential for so many countries. But how do you diversify as an economy and build that productive capacity? And then how do economies adjust? What happens as trade shifts, and our costs that come with that, how is that addressed? And then finally, how do you build the infrastructure? And I think that when it gets into some of the hard infrastructure, again, here's where I see very different approaches taken by different countries that I think are going to really have long term implications for how international law continues to evolve.

Jill O'Donnell: So let's follow up on that last point for a moment on how international law might evolve, or be evolving as we speak. You've talked about this before and talked about trends are emerging around the globe, especially approaches to trade in Africa that are testing international law and our current understanding of it. So can you talk about that a little bit more? What are these trends that you're seeing in Sub-Saharan Africa or elsewhere that we should be paying attention to that might really have serious implications for how international law evolves going forward?

Katrin Kuhlmann: So there are two things that I'm particularly focused on at the moment and really, really fascinated by. One is what's happening in Africa, and again, this is now a continent wide initiative in Africa. I think that the movement to integrate Africa through trade corridors, which is something that I've worked on for the last decade, and through regional trade agreements, and I think the two go very hand in hand too. The physical market aligns very closely, or should align very closely, with the rules for the market itself. But now I think there's this continent wide effort through the African Continental Free Trade Agreement that is a real landmark in trade and development and is going to have a significant impact as it continues to build out. But it's really interesting though to see how it's evolving. Almost every one of the countries in Africa now has signed on to the agreement. There are a number of countries that ratify the agreement, which made it go into effect, but almost every country except one has actually signed onto the agreement, which is pretty amazing. And together it's I think 1.2 billion people, GDP of 3.4 trillion. It's a massive, massive agreement in terms of its scope and coverage. What's interesting though about it to me too is just how it's being done. So typically with a trade agreement, at least in the United States, and I think we're not alone in this, we want to have everything in place before anything moves forward. So we will negotiate sort of in this very, very kind of holistic way. But the whole agreement has to be in place.

With the African Continental Free Trade Agreement, the political agreement came first, then the political agreement basically was ratified, went into effect and the negotiations are advancing in stages. They're advancing more incrementally, which I think is kind of fascinating. It's just a very different way of developing laws. So they're in the first phase now, which is almost complete I think, to develop the protocols for trading goods and trading services and the protocol on the rules and procedures for dispute settlement. And then the next phase will shift into sort of the rules part of the agreement, which the first set of rules that will be looked at are investment, competition, intellectual property. And I'm quite certain that what's going to happen as those rules start to get hammered out is that this agreement is going to have much more of a development focus than perhaps other trade agreements have. I think that's going to be built into the way the rules are approached from the very beginning. I think that, one of the things that I'm studying right now, and I'm working with an African lawyer on this, both on writing a paper, and I have a research assistant who's a young African lawyer who's helping to do some of the research and is finding some fascinating things, but we're trying to look at what the patterns might be for emerging law in those areas. And in all three of those areas, I think there are a number of African countries that have really sort of stood up and said, "We maybe need a different way of thinking about this and a different way of doing this."

So I think just the scope and scale of that is one thing, and also this more incremental nature of how it's being negotiated is another thing that I think kind of sends a signal that this is a new model. Another thing that I think is absolutely fascinating and I gave a talk on this yesterday and now just can't stop thinking about it, is the Belt and Road Initiative that China has launched. It is also just massive in terms of scope and scale. So it covers I think 80 countries in the infrastructure development, but I think 136 countries have signed, or 125 maybe, have signed some kind of cooperation document, and I think it is 130... I think it's 136, have signed a cooperation document with China under the Belt and Road Initiative and then a number of international organizations too. So it's a very diverse group of countries that have signed on. And it's interesting though because it's mainly soft law abased at this point. So the agreement itself, there are these set of agreements, I should say, there's not one agreement. So there's not one treaty, there's not one big agreement. There are a series of agreements between China and the countries that are participating in this in one way or another that are kind of forming the foundation from it. Then though, there are a series of transactions, and by one account I read hundreds of thousands of transactions that will underpin this that are themselves going to be changing international law, but more from the transactional level up rather than from the agreement level down, which I think is just going to be a really interesting new model, and it will touch on so many things too. Trade, investment, financial regulatory harmonization. It's very comprehensive too in the number of areas that it will cover.

Jill O'Donnell: So a lot to unpack there, Katrin, that's a lot of good information, a lot of new ideas for us to think about. So one I'd like to just follow up on is, you talked about the way that the African Continental Free Trade Agreement has been and is being negotiated with a political agreement first and then moving forward in phases after that. Do you think that that will produce some kind of new model that could potentially revive the Doha Development Agenda that, as most people agree, is pretty much dormant, dead even, or what we or will we just be beyond that by the time this is concluded? Are there any lessons there for us that you can see catching on, or is it still too early to say?

Katrin Kuhlmann: Well, I think that it could very well do that. It is a bit early to say because, again, the agreement is really a high level political agreement and a lot of the details are still going to be worked out over time. So it's hard to look at it and say, "Here's exactly how this could align with where things were going on Doha." But I think it's fascinating if you look at this first basket of issues that are being discussed and decided, investment, competition, IP, these are all places too where Doha was supposed to propel the conversation forward. I think that it, by its very nature, looks like it's going to be a more progressive agreement, and I think that this idea of doing things more incrementally is something that could really align with trying to figure out how to make trade work better for development, because I think, again, going back to my definition of development, or I guess kind of range of definitions on development, if we agree that development is always this dynamic forward looking force, it's changing. It's not something that you just capture at one particular point in time and that's it. And I think to me it's been a little bit difficult sometimes to look at how trade agreements are done where they, and again, I'm a lawyer, so I do think you have to be able to agree on rules, you have to be able to agree on systems. But really taking those and locking them in at one particular point in time without some way of letting the market continue to evolve I think can be challenging, particularly for economies that really are emerging and changing fairly, either fairly rapidly or changing at a at a pretty significant pace and scope. So it's going to be interesting to see how this works. Whether this is really a more flexible model, whether it is something that can take some of those things into account. I wonder whether it will be something that has some kind of change element built into it. I think in terms of models for agreements too, the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement presented a really interesting model because it didn't treat every country the same. It actually differentiated a bit based on what level of development economies were at and where they thought their needs are and then tailored both commitments and capacity building, like we were talking about before, to those particular needs. And so I think that these kind of more nuanced and more tailored agreements really could be the way forward. But I think it's very possible that something like the African Continental Free Trade Agreement could really push international law forward and then be more of a roundabout way I guess of going back to something like the Doha Development Agenda. So it'll be interesting to see whether that happens. And I hope that it will take on some additional areas too, like food security, that are so incredibly important to the African continent and really so incredibly important internationally where we haven't had a more holistic approach and need one.

Jill O'Donnell: Great. So again, a lot to think about and keep watching as we go forward here. I'd also like to ask you a question linking what's going on with US-China trade tensions to Africa and see if there's a connection there that we should be aware of. You are someone who's very, very familiar with and talked a lot about trade preference programs that the US has in place. For example, with respect to African countries where certain countries can qualify to send exports to the US either duty free or under preferential terms. And so I'm wondering if, given the recent trade tensions with the US and China and tariffs and retaliatory tariffs being imposed on US and Chinese products in successive rounds, if that's created any new opportunities for countries in Africa or in the generalized system of preferences trade program the US has in place.

So if tariffs are going up on products coming into the US from China, and those are products that US companies rely on as intermediate inputs into their own finished products, could they be motivated to shift supply chains to an African country, for example, that might produce a similar good that comes in here and to this country, I should say, at now a lower rate. Does that make sense? Are those two dynamics linked at all?

Katrin Kuhlmann: Well, I think that's a fascinating question and I moderated a panel on trade preferences, or trade and development, but with a heavy focus on trade preferences a few weeks ago in DC through the Washington International Trade Association and this exact topic came up. And I do want to refer everybody to a resource in this area to something called the Coalition for GSP, which has been doing some really good analytical work and data collection around this. So I'll tell you what I understand based on what I've learned from them and what I heard from them on the panel because I think that is a fascinating dynamic. How does the trade war with China then have this spillover effect into development through these other programs because of how things are changing? So what I understand is that where there is an overlap between GSP and the China tariffs, the trade has grown faster. So in other words, where there are tariffs in place for China and GSP eligible products, there has been a growth pattern because of that. So there has been an uptick, just as your question suggests. So I think that what they told me, it's about a 20% increase versus an 8% increase. So trade is growing at a faster rate for those products that fall within the China tariffs.

Now I think though there are a couple of things that seem to be playing out with this as well that I think are really interesting and really important to consider. One is that I think there is a location advantage. So in other words, the China trade war might be having an impact on GSP that kind of diverts trade to other countries within the GSP program. But it seems like it's still fairly regionally focused. So the diversion is more for countries in Asia rather than countries in Africa, for example. The ones that I think have benefited the most are Thailand, the Philippines, Turkey, Indonesia. I think India was benefiting before its GSP status changed. So I think that that's one thing to keep in mind. Cambodia, they noted, was another example, that Cambodia has benefited too, partly because of location and partly because of policy it sounds like. So Cambodia had been kind of positioning its economy to diversify and to expand more into travel goods, which is one of the areas that falls in this overlap. So Cambodia was able to see a change. And for Cambodia that's pretty significant too because I think Cambodia has been one of the countries where they've struggled to really benefit a lot under GSP because a lot of their production was focused in apparel, which is not covered under GSP. So at any rate, I think those are some really interesting dynamics that are playing out through GSP as things change with China. However, I think for a lot of countries in Africa, we're not seeing the same kind of change. And I think there are a few reasons for that. I think one, as I said before, I think it's a location issue. I think the changes are more regional than they are global.

But I think also a lot of the economies in Africa are maybe not as well positioned to take advantage of some of these changes in global supply chains, and some of the other things that we've already talked about, the supply side issues, the amount of time that it takes to move things from one place to another, the rules of the market and just the overall diversity of some of the economies, I think that's part of the reason that Africa and African countries are not benefiting as much, even though they have even greater benefits under preference programs through a GOA, which is a regional preference program that sort of sits on top of the foundation of GSP. So the African countries that are eligible get all of the benefits of GSP plus all of the benefits of a GOA, which does extend to additional products like apparel. So I think that's another really interesting area to watch, and I recommend the Coalition for GSP, as I mentioned, is a good resource with a lot more data in this area.

Jill O'Donnell: Well we'll definitely include that in our show notes for sure. The coalition for GSB, yeah. So one more question before I get to ask you what you're reading, and that's just a big picture question on how this looks to us sitting here in the United States. I know you've taught a course on international trade development and the common good as it's titled. And so I just want to ask you briefly about how those three things are related and why it's important for us here in the United States that developing countries elsewhere are growing and succeeding and trading more.

Katrin Kuhlmann: So I think that, whether or not the politics always want to recognize this, globally we're becoming more and more interconnected. So what happens in the United States has an impact throughout the world and what happens in other parts of the world has an impact in the United States. And the reason that I entitled the course 'Trade Development and the Common Good' is to really try to understand, and again as lawyers too, as we're thinking about the rules of the market, that these are not just... That there might be different ways in which you can approach rulemaking, that there might be different considerations that you can take into account and that there could be a way of really crafting trade rules and trade policy so that it would have the greatest impact possible and would benefit as many people as possible, hence the common good.

One of the things that I've done in my class, too, which I think has been really beneficial is that, and again, I think this kind of approach works whether we're thinking about trade from the perspective of the United States or we're thinking about trade in another country and the more that we can make those connections, I think the better. Which is why I think it's always interesting to see too what kind of an impact to policy change one place is going to have elsewhere to the extent that we can really measure and assess those things well. But one of the things that we've done in class are to use case studies, and each of them is focused on a different dimension of trade and development law. But each of them also has a number of different perspectives so that we can really try to understand that common good element. So the students will take different rules in the case studies and we'll rotate those throughout the semester. So one week we have a set of farmers, a set of small businesses, a set of maybe developed country government and developing country governments, or it could be an international institution and a set of governments, or it could be a [inaudible 00:32:09] issue. It could be two governments potentially on different sides or potentially on the same side of something. And NGOs as well who are trying to engage in these issues and find a better way forward. And it's been really fascinating to see how that plays out when we try to kind of go back from this question of what should the law look like or what does the law look like based on our knowledge to really thinking about how does it have an impact and how does it impact particular people or particular individuals or maybe there is a group, it could be a case study that focuses on the impact on women or the impact on a particular community as we kind of talked about at the beginning. But it's been a really powerful way of thinking about trade, and I think that it would benefit us all to do as much of that kind of thinking as we possibly could. But I do think it's kind of fascinating. I mean, again, my work has been mainly focused on the international realm, but I can see a lot of connections between what I've done internationally and some of these questions that we're trying to figure out right now in the US when it comes to thinking of the impact on trade and the jobs and the inclusivity and whether the rules are really working for people. I think a lot of those same things apply here, and if we can try to work to make trade and the rules surrounding it a more transparent system and a more participatory system and a more inclusive system, I think we would have a different conversation on trade in the US as well.

Jill O'Donnell: Thanks for being part of the Yeutter Institute Advisory Council, I should note that too, that you're a very valued advisor to this institute as well and those are some of the conversations that we're trying to be a platform for having more of.

Katrin Kuhlmann: Absolutely. And if I can just say one thing too, Jill, about the advisory council and the Institute- I just was so blown away by the recent conference in Lincoln on trade and thought that that was exactly the kind of conversation that we need to be having around trade. One where you have really a diverse set of views and we're really engaging, not just from a theoretical level, people who think about trade and think about policy and think about law, but those who were living it day to day.

And I try to do this as much as I can in class because the work that I do has... I've spent a lot of time out in different countries, really trying to understand the impact that trade is having and how people perceive it and how they feel like it affects them. But I was so struck by that conference, so I just want to say that too. I hope we can include that as well. I just thought it was such a great way of talking about trade in the Midwest where there really is so much that's having a direct impact, and I wish we could do more like that too.

Jill O'Donnell: Well thank you, Katrin and thanks for being part of that, and we hope to do more and do  have plans to do more of that here. So thank you. Now I know that you read widely and read a lot, so tell us something that you've read lately about trade that has been particularly striking to you.

Katrin Kuhlmann: Well, there are a couple of things I guess. As I mentioned to you earlier, I've been doing some really interesting research on the China Belt and Road Initiative and the African Continental Free Trade Agreement. And so I've read a lot of interesting things on both of those. But one of the things that I thought I would mention is a couple of weeks ago, I moderated a book launch at Georgetown Law School that coincided with the 75th anniversary of the Bretton Woods Institutions. And of course, we are entering this phase globally where things are changing, and it's really good to have a look back at how the system has evolved and then to look forward at how it might evolve even more. And the book that was launched and that we were discussing at the lunch is called World Trade and Investment Law Reimagined: A Progressive Agenda for an Inclusive Globalization. And it's a collection of essays that was edited by a fellow Georgetown law professor of mine named Alvaro Santos along with Chantal Thomas and David Trubek. And it is a great book that has a lot of really thoughtful pieces in it and it covers a whole range of things on trade, investment, labor, a number of different projects that I think are related to everything that we're talking about today. So I thought that was with something that I would recommend to others. And I think that, as I said before, we really need to do more in this area and hopefully get more out there so that there's much more to read and discuss going forward.

Jill O'Donnell: Thank you. That sounds like a terrific recommendation. Very timely. There's a lot of discussion right now looking back at the Bretton Woods Institutions and how they might need to evolve, so this sounds like a great book to read to help those conversations along. Katrin Kuhlmann, thank you so much for being on trade matters. You've given us a lot to think about, so we'll probably have to have you come back to unpack more of this at a later date. Thank you.

Katrin Kuhlmann: Thanks Jill. I really appreciate it and it was great to do this and look forward to continuing the discussion.

Jill O'Donnell: That's it for this episode of Trade Matters. A big thank you to Bryce Doeschot and Brianne Wolf for helping produce this podcast. Please subscribe to Trade Matters on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you have ideas or topics you would like to hear about on Trade Matters, we'd love to hear from you. Send us an email at yeutterinstitute@unl.edu, or follow us on Twitter @YeutterUNL [corrected.] Opinions expressed on Trade Matters are solely those of the guest or host and not the Yeutter Institute or the university of Nebraska-Lincoln.