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Global Trade Realities

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Workers at a Chinese factory in Beijing last month. China strongly opposed President Barack Obama's decision to impose punitive tariffs on imports of car and light truck tires, calling it protectionism that violates World Trade Organization rules. (AP)
Workers at a Chinese factory in Beijing last month. China strongly opposed President Barack Obama's decision to impose punitive tariffs on imports of car and light truck tires, calling it protectionism that violates World Trade Organization rules. (AP)

The G20 sits down in Pittsburgh today — leaders of the world’s rich and emerging-rich nations.
The Obama administration is clear on what it wants out of Pittsburgh: a commitment to “rebalance” the world’s economy, for China to buy more of its own products, and Americans to make more of their own.
Coming on the heels of a fat new U.S. tariff on Chinese tires, that sounds to some like trade-war talk. Protectionism. The end of globalization as we’ve known it.
Some Americans want that. Others say, hold on.
This hour, On Point: The G20, trade, and “rebalancing” the global economy.
You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.Guests:

Joining us from Washington is Zanny Minton Beddoes, economics editor for The Economist. She edited last week’s cover story, “Playing with fire,” about the Obama administration's "alarming trade row with China." Also see The Economist editorial, "Economic vandalism," on Barack Obama and free trade.

Also from Washington we're joined by Robert Scott, senior international economist and director of international programs at the Economic Policy Institute. He studies trade agreements and their impact on working people in the U.S. and other countries, as well as the macro-economic effects of trade and capital flows.

Joining us from Ithaca, New York, is Eswar Prasad, professor of trade policy at Cornell University, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and former head of the International Monetary Fund’s China Division. His recent op-ed for The Wall Street Journal was headlined "A Dangerous Game of Trade 'Chicken.'"

This program aired on September 24, 2009.

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