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    Alan Beattie

    Senior Trade Writer

    Alan Beattie writes the Trade Secrets newsletter every Monday and an opinion column each Thursday, covering international trade, globalisation, the intersection of geopolitics and economics and the world financial system.

    Based in London, he was previously the FT's international economy editor and world trade editor and has been also been based in Washington and Brussels for the FT. He is the author of False Economy (Penguin, 2009), a popular economic history of the world, and Who's In Charge Here? (Penguin, 2012), an account of governments' mishandling of the global financial crisis. Before joining the FT, Alan was an economist at the Bank of England.

    Email Alan Beattie @alanbeattie  on Twitter (link opens in a new browser window)

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    • Thursday, 27 July, 2023
      Trade SecretsEmerging markets
      How the Brics nations risk becoming satellites of China

      The grouping looks less like an emerging market steering committee and more like a fan club for Beijing

      The Chinese premier, Xi Jinping, and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil in April
    • Monday, 24 July, 2023
      Trade Secrets
      Global food crisis that resolutely fails to happen Premium content

      Putin’s attempts to destroy Ukrainian farming and starve poor countries haven’t worked

      Ship being loaded with grain
    • Wednesday, 19 July, 2023
      Trade SecretsData sharing
      The global order of digital empires is only just holding together

      Democratic market economies need to work together to keep the free exchange of data alive

      View through a window of Max Schrems sitting in front of his computer at his desk
    • Monday, 17 July, 2023
      EU trade
      Europe resumes its historical hunt for precious metals in Latin America Premium content

      Reviving the stalled EU trade deal with Mercosur could unlock more raw materials for its companies

      Inspectors at a brine pool at a lithium plant.
    • Thursday, 13 July, 2023
      Trade SecretsWorld Trade Organization
      The emissions market failure that still threatens the planet

      Slow and iterative litigation through the WTO looks the most promising route to a global carbon pricing regime

      Delegates sit and talk in the lobby of the World Trade Organization headquarters
    • Monday, 10 July, 2023
      Trade Secrets
      Turning the critical minerals melee into an orderly queue Premium content

      Gathering buyers and sellers in a fair and organised market is a nice idea but a long shot

      Periodic table, highlighting the elements Gallium and Germanium.
    • Thursday, 6 July, 2023
      Trade SecretsEU-China relations
      De-risking trade with China is intrinsically political

      It’s absurd to suggest that companies alone can manage economic relations between Beijing and the west

      A VDU screen displays the Nvidia logo while a building in the distance also sports the brand name
    • Monday, 3 July, 2023
      Trade Secrets
      Transatlantic impasse over turning steel green Premium content

      The US is watching politics in the Midwest while the EU is fretting about the WTO

      Rolls of steel
    • Thursday, 29 June, 2023
      Trade SecretsBelt and Road Initiative
      How the US and Europe can beat China’s Belt and Road

      Washington and Brussels need to emphasise open and fair dealing in their developing-world rivalry with Beijing

      William Ruto in suit and tie sits in an armchair and gestures with his right hand
    • Monday, 26 June, 2023
      Trade Secrets
      Germany’s global supply chains under scrutiny over forced Chinese labour Premium content

      Germany’s new due diligence law is attracting complaints about abuse of Uyghur workers in carmaking plants

      Shanghai Volkswagen, a joint venture between Volkswagen Group and SAIC Motor
    • Thursday, 22 June, 2023
      Trade SecretsGlobal Economy
      An impasse over finance between rich and poor that threatens the planet

      Advanced and emerging economies alike need to restore the clout and credibility of multilateral lending

      Barbados prime minister Mia Mottley. A conference this week will consider options for extending concessional finance, including proposals from her Bridgetown Initiative
    • Monday, 19 June, 2023
      Trade Secrets
      How green trade regulations help the strong and punish the weak Premium content

      The EU’s anti-deforestation import ban is good news for those developing-country farmers who can meet its tricky tests

      EU president Ursula von der Leyen and her Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
    • Thursday, 15 June, 2023
      Trade SecretsGlobalisation
      Why geopolitical tensions don’t threaten a fresh surge in inflation

      Economic globalisation hasn’t done much to hold prices down over the past three decades

      An employee works on a garment production line at Alibaba Group’s smart factory in Hangzhou, China, in 2020.
    • Monday, 12 June, 2023
      Trade Secrets
      The case against Europe matching Biden’s green subsidy splurge Premium content

      New paper says EU domestic supply chain in electric vehicles already being established without handouts

      Photographers taking pictures of a Volkswagen ID.7
    • Thursday, 8 June, 2023
      Trade SecretsUS economy
      The US trade pledge to the Indo-Pacific is empty

      Joe Biden’s vague IPEF structure is no match for deals that offer tangible commercial gains

      Joe Biden with prime ministers Anthony Albanese, of Australia, Narendra Modi, of India, and Fumio Kishida, of Japan
    • Thursday, 25 May, 2023
      Trade SecretsTurkish economy
      Erdoğan’s monetary misadventures are pushing Turkey off course

      The country’s vigorous export-oriented private sector is being threatened by the president’s economic chicanery

      Erdoğan supporters in Istanbul after first-round voting in the presidential election
    • Monday, 22 May, 2023
      Trade Secrets
      G7 inches towards defence pact against trade coercion Premium content

      America’s allies have some shiny rhetoric but no common legal tool to take on bullying from Beijing

      G7 members sitting around a table at the Hiroshima Summit
    • Thursday, 18 May, 2023
      Trade SecretsUS foreign policy
      The debt ceiling crisis is distracting Biden from his geopolitical agenda

      Cutting Asia-Pacific trip short to avert domestic catastrophe underlines US president’s foreign policy weaknesses

      Joe Biden’s aim of creating a counterweight strategic trade alliance to China has consistently struggled against his domestic imperatives
    • Monday, 15 May, 2023
      Trade Secrets
      Europe gets Chinese car factories rather than roads and railways Premium content

      Italy considers quitting the BRI, and how the EU’s new anti-subsidies rules might hit Gulf states’ investments in Europe

      Italy’s prime minister Giorgia Meloni
    • Thursday, 11 May, 2023
      Trade SecretsGeopolitics
      The G7 struggles to find unity over China’s economic bullying

      This month’s summit will show the rich democracies’ club displays a range of attitudes about how to tackle coercion

      A Chinese maritime surveillance vessel, right, passes near Japan’s Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea
    • Monday, 8 May, 2023
      Trade Secrets
      Will the EU still have Big Pharma’s back abroad? Premium content

      Brussels’ new rules on compulsory licences at home could influence battles over drug patents overseas

      A Covid vaccine dose
    • Thursday, 4 May, 2023
      Trade SecretsUK universities
      Fish exports are a drop in the ocean next to overseas student fees

      Governments like the UK’s are realising the potential from selling higher education abroad

      Students and visitors outside University College London
    • Thursday, 27 April, 2023
      Trade SecretsSemiconductors
      South Korea ponders the high cost of being America’s friend

      Seoul is the latest US ally to encounter the commercial downside of Washington’s security campaigns against China

      Joe Biden and South Korea’s Yoon Suk Yeol watch the United States Army Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps march past on the South Lawn of the White House
    • Monday, 24 April, 2023
      Trade Secrets
      The coming disputes over trade in electric vehicles Premium content

      China’s dominance of its domestic car market will soon be projected to Europe

      Aerial view of EV charging points
    • Thursday, 20 April, 2023
      Trade SecretsBrazil
      The west has too little to offer leaders like Lula

      Chinese trade and investment in Brazil exerts a pull on the country’s geopolitical alignment

      Xi Jinping and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Beijing. China is offering immediate help for Lula’s priority of reindustrialising Brazil
    Previous page You are on page 2 Next page

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