Trade War: 'More states block cheap Chinese imports'

anyone for a good old fashioned trade war?.............from fin24.com...........

"Protectionism is on the rise as more countries try to give their economies a leg-up by blocking foreign competition - especially Chinese imports, according to a report by independent economists to be published on Wednesday.

The report, by Global Trade Alert (GTA), found almost 200 protectionist steps taken since the G20 summit in Seoul last November.
 Four out of five of those steps were taken by G20 countries, and almost half - 91 out of 194 - would harm Chinese interests.

Many politicians are facing leadership cycles and a worsening economic prognosis, which could tempt them to reach for the short-term popularity offered by protectionism, said Simon Evenett, an economics professor at St Gallen University in Switzerland who coordinates GTA.

“Moreover, now that many governments are cutting their budgets and that interest rates cannot fall much further in many countries, restricting foreign competition is one of the few tools available to policymakers when responding to pleas from domestic firms and trade unions,” said an executive summary of the report emailed to Reuters.

Although politicians love to rail against protectionism, the report said that many measures were unannounced and only came to light much later"..............READ MORE