WASHINGTON (AP) – World finance officials believe that the answer to growing attacks on globalization is not to erect new trade barriers but to do a better job of protecting workers who are harmed by free trade.
The finance officials are concluding three days of talks Saturday with sessions of the policy-making bodies of the 189-nation International Monetary Fund and its sister lending organization, the World Bank.
The meetings are coming at a time when there is a sizable anti-globalization backlash following a June vote in Britain to leave the European Union and the presidential campaign of Republican nominee Donald Trump, who has focused on his complaints about illegal immigration and America’s huge trade deficits.
Trump has threatened to impose punitive tariffs on countries like China and Mexico that he feels are pursuing unfair trade practices and costing millions of American jobs.
But officials at these meetings say that a decades-long effort to tear down trade barriers has lifted millions of people in poor nations out of poverty. They say the problem is that not enough has been done to protect workers who have lost jobs because of the greater competition from developing countries.