The G20’s Role in Fostering Trade and Investment

There is increasing optimism that the worst of the pandemic may be behind us. Whether the Omicron variants were the last major spikes of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) or whether there are others still to come, global economic actors are turning away from the immediate demands of the health crisis and towards the challenge of reigniting long-run economic growth. Future growth will, as always, largely depend on expanding the capacity of cities, regions, and nations to sell their goods and services to each other. Yet, global trade faces stiff headwinds. The United States (US)–China trade war has put the world’s two largest economies behind obstinate walls of tariffs, rising global geopolitical tensions have complicated efforts to revive multilateral cooperation on trade, and the pandemic has severely disrupted both global supply chains and the movement of people across borders that is essential for international commerce. Members of the G20 must find ways to foster trade and investment in an environment in which the institutions and infrastructure underlying the international trading system are badly strained.