Preferential trade deals for the Global South replaced universal free trade

Evidence

The universalists had the advantage of purity but they lacked the mechanism of enforcement. Haberler intended his 1958 GATT report as a weapon against the growing protectionism of Eu­rope and a clarion call to liberal order. It had the opposite effect. When the Global South used the Haberler Report to demand more market access, the Global North refused to implement ­free trade and cut subsidies. Instead they took the nonliberal path of less re­sis­tance and began granting preferential treatment to developing countries in the 1960s. They could thereby continue to subsidize their own production while also granting better market access to the products of developing nations. The colonial association clauses in the Rome treaty “had breached the wall” of postwar liberal norms, as one scholar put it, and the wave of preferences that followed veered from the GATT credo of nondiscrimination. The result was what Gunnar Myrdal called (approvingly) a “double standard of morality in international trade”—an expectation of reciprocity between industrialized nations and “special and differential treatment” between North and South. — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists, 714

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader GATT/neoliberal orthodoxy literature and the North-South trade divide debates in development economics. — connects to: Rich nations achieved growth through protectionism they now deny the South — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 296; Global South nations pursued protection and liberalization simultaneously rather than one ideology — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: The End of Empire and the…, 663; The Eurafrica model, not universalist free trade, shaped 1960s trade policy — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: The End of Empire and the…, 715 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• The Eurafrica model, not universalist free trade, shaped 1960s trade policy #qualifies (0.85) — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists, 715
• NIEO opponents reframed Global South demands as an assault on liberal trading principles. #responds-to (0.80) — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists, 798
• Formal decolonization gave way to a neo-imperial global economic order #complicates (0.78) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 315
• Neoliberal reformers framed Global South exemptions as undermining the rule of law. #corroborates (0.72) — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists, 797