US treasury secretary Janet Yellen. Alexandros Michailidis/Shutterstock The invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 prompted the US Treasury Department to impose unprecedented sanctions on Russia, to hold it “accountable for its premeditated and unprovoked invasion”. The aim was to prevent Russia from “prop[ing] up its rapidly depreciating currency by restricting global supplies of the ruble and access to reserves that Russia may try to exchange to support the ruble”. In other words, Russia wouldn’t be able to sell enough US dollars in the foreign exchange market to buy up Russian currency and bo ..read more

A container ships docked in Freeport, Grand Bahama Island in 2019. Corey Seeman/Flickr, CC BY Global warming is making weather patterns more extreme and increasing inequalities across regions. However, economic growth is still possible, with economies showing a range of responses to the impacts of global heating. Recently, Martina Bozzola, Fabio Santeramo and I joined together to understand whether the climate crisis is creating new trading patterns. Our research concludes that international trade may serve as an adaptation strategy to climate change. Production shifts induced by the changing ..read more

U.S. President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act on Aug. 16, 2022, including electric vehicle subsidies with 'buy American' rules. Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden’s landmark climate law, is now expected to prompt a trillion dollars in government spending to fight climate change and trillions more in private investment. But the law and Biden’s broader “buy American” agenda include measures that discriminate against imports. One year in, these policies, such as the law’s electric vehicle subsidies, appear to be succeeding at growing dome ..read more

U.S. sanctions have further strained relations between the two superpowers. narvikk/iStock/Getty Images Plus After a recent meeting between U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and officials in Beijing, China released a statement demanding “practical action” over the issue of sanctions. The implication was that the punitive measures – imposed by the U.S. government on hundreds of Chinese individuals and entities over the past few years – impede any alleviation of the strained relations between the two economic giants. The statement followed a testy encounter in May 2023 in which Chinese Defens ..read more

The mismanagement of plastic waste is one of the main causes of plastic pollution in nature. Larina Marina/Shutterstock The world produces a vast amount of plastic. Global plastic production increased from 2 million metric tons in 1950 to 348 million metric tons in 2017. Yet much of this plastic is wasted: 86% of the world’s plastic waste in 2016 was either incinerated, sent to landfill or leaked into nature. Many countries use international trade to manage their plastic waste. The justification for this is that plastic waste can be treated in destinations with better capacity for waste treatm ..read more

Bosaso has become a major export hub since security improved in Somalia's Puntland region. Mohamed Abdiwahab/AFP via Getty Images The port city of Bosaso, located at the north-eastern corner of Somalia, provides a striking example of the interlinkage between security and infrastructure. The city benefited from the civil war that ravaged the southern parts of Somalia in the 1990s and 2000s. It developed into a booming trade centre. But increased violence in Bosaso has negatively affected international trade in the last decade. Security improvements and the recovery of other ports in Somalia and ..read more

Boureima Hama/AFP via Getty Images Smuggling in the Ugandan border region of West Nile has a long and chequered history. It straddles the fine line between legitimacy and legality. Governance and conflict researcher Kristof Titeca has studied smuggling in the border region since 2003. He explains the dynamics. What’s the history of smuggling in Uganda’s West Nile region? The term smuggling often brings strongly negative connotations, and is often associated with criminality and violence. However, smugglers aren’t always associated with these negative connotations by the communities in which t ..read more

Most national carbon border adjustments being considered target only manufactured goods. Thatree Thitivongvaroon via Getty Images The European Union is embarking on an experiment that will expand its climate policies to imports for the first time. It’s called a carbon border adjustment, and it aims to level the playing field for the EU’s domestic producers by taxing energy-intensive imports like steel and cement that are high in greenhouse gas emissions but aren’t already covered by climate policies in their home countries. If the border adjustment works as planned, it could encourage the spre ..read more

The UK is expecting a long, cold winter and gas prices are unlikely to fall for some years to come. Jelena Stanojkovic / Shutterstock The UK is trying to ensure households and businesses have enough energy this winter by turning to international markets buoyed by booming US liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply, and reinstating retired storage capabilities. But the impact of Russia’s recent decision to switch off its Nord Stream 1 pipeline has proven that European countries are still very much at the mercy of changes in global gas market supply and demand. Such events are likely to continue to ca ..read more

Photo by Phill Magakoe / AFP) (Photo by Phill Magakoe/AFP via Getty Images In mid-July 2022 the European Union imposed new restrictions on South African citrus imports. The new phytosanitary requirements were meant to address False Codling Moth, a citrus pest that is native to South Africa and for which there is zero tolerance in the EU. The new regulations are a major blow to South Africa’s citrus industry as they will severely disrupt exports. The country is the world’s second largest exporter of citrus after Spain. The EU accounted for 41% of Southern African citrus exports by value in 202 ..read more