HT Leadership Summit: Economist Joseph E Stiglitz questions value of trade deals with Trump’s US

Nobel laureate economist Joseph E Stiglitz on Saturday questioned what a trade deal with the US was worth under President Donald Trump. He said Canada’s agreement with Washington had done little good. Stiglitz cited the EU example and said the US was pressing its trading partners to give up their sovereignty.

“Canada had a trade agreement with the US. What good did it do?” Stiglitz said at the 24th Hindustan Times Leadership Summit in conversation with Dr Niranjan Rajadhyaksha, executive director of Artha Global.

He pointed to Europe’s attempt to control its digital economy and the worrying US response. “And the US said no, not if you are trading with us. And then you are giving up your sovereignty. That is something to be worried about,” said Stiglitz, who chaired Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers from 1995 to 1997 and was the World Bank’s chief economist (1997 to 2000).

Stiglitz said Trump’s tariffs would not bring production back to the US. He added that Trump “just doesn’t understand what to do”, citing coffee taxation. “Taxing coffee does not bring coffee production. We [US] don’t have the weather for it,” said Stiglitz, who shared the 2001 Nobel Prize in economics.

His remarks came on the same morning that external affairs minister S Jaishankar said at the summit that India and the US had sorted out the bulk of issues in their trade talks and reached the finishing line.

In a column in July, Stiglitz wrote that when another country has the means and the willingness to fight back, Trump “always chickens out”.