Worldwide trade: a complicated seating plan

Worldwide trade: a complicated seating plan

While the hazards of history have brought together, within a few days of each other in the calendar, the 60^th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome and the official act of separation between the United Kingdom and the EU, a lot of new questions are being asked, about the post-Brexit era, about the coming elections in France this year, as well as in the Netherlands and in Germany, about US foreign policy, about future international free-trade agreements, about the new reform of the CAP, etc. Although they are far removed from these acute political concerns, the activities of the many national industries involved in the worldwide tomato products trade will not be spared the changes brought about by these events.
The consequences of Brexit are already being felt, at a point when the negotiations – a two-year marathon that will have to be run more like a sprint race – has not even yet begun. What impact will this historic period, which could cost 122 billion pounds, have on the purchasing power of British consumers? What agreements will preside over the exchanges in 2020 between this market – one of the biggest in the world for our industry – and its main supply sources, which are the EU, the USA and China?
While the Trump administration expresses excessively critical opinions regarding what it considers to be a highly undervalued euro that benefits European exports, and promotes an unabashed economic nationalism, it also generates uncertainty and instability by withdrawing the United States from the Transpacific Partnership discussions, leaving TTIP negotiations at a standstill and announcing its desire to renegotiate the content of the NAFTA treaty. How will the future monetary and commercial policy of the world's second biggest economy, which notably considers its main challenger – China – as a currency manipulating country, affect the competitiveness of Italian, Chinese, Spanish and Chilean products in the coming months and years?
In reaction to these issues, European political leaders have clearly identified their potential "new friends" and, for several months already, have been looking to other commercial horizons. "Our negotiations with Japan are now in a decisive and hopefully final stage," Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission, the EU’s trade negotiator, said alongside EU President Donald Tusk and Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on 21 March 2017. "This agreement is necessary […] because we believe in free, fair and rules-based trade." Japan, which is the second biggest Asian trade partner of the EU after China, has shown itself to be more favorable to a trade treaty with Europe since the United States withdrew from the Transpacific Partnership. Tomato paste is one of the products for which the EU has been attempting to obtain a suppression of customs tariffs.
The same message was delivered by Cecilia Malmström, the European Commissioner for Trade, as she visited Canada on 19 March, in order to promote the institution of the CETA: "The EU is the world’s largest trader and largest foreign investor. With or without Britain, our leadership in global commerce will continue. As I visit Canada this week, my message is clear: Even at a time when some doors may be closing, the EU’s are staying firmly open."

It is clear that the time is right for new alliances. Worldwide political decisions and reversals have little concern for the future of our industries, for the contexts that they bring about or for the dynamics that they set in motion. The worldwide tomato industries are very dependent and not often consulted, so they do their best to adjust to these changing and precariously balanced situations: this will still be the case in coming years.
But in this shifting context, the least that can be said for the moment is that the seating plan for the future worldwide tomato paste and sauces trade is going to be very difficult to determine.