Liz Truss: We need to return to more realistic trade

In the opening panel discussion of the joint conference of the Hungarian Institute of Foreign Affairs (MKI) and the Indian Observer Research Foundation (ORF), Liz Truss said: the reason for the decline of European power is that there is not enough investment in the defense industry, there is no technological competition. Too little technology comes from Europe, and existing companies also receive their capital mainly from the United States, she said.

“There is a massive decline in European economic and security power,”

– she stated, adding: the World Trade Organization has failed, and the coronavirus pandemic has clearly highlighted how fragile global supply chains have become.

According to the former British Prime Minister, it was a rational decision by Donald Trump to want to reorganize the global trade system.

“I support a system based on bilateral agreements, not on one rule being good for everyone. The latter has not worked so far and cannot be enforced,”

he explained, adding that new agreements will be possible in the coming period. He stressed that the United States remains the most powerful country in the world.

Eric X. Li, president of the Chinese investment firm Chengwei Capital, said that China was one of the biggest winners of globalization. However, he called it a problem that in the West, economic benefits were not distributed in a way that would have satisfied different layers of society, so “an internal revolution, a rebellion against globalization broke out.”

He pointed out that the United States and the West were the core of globalization, while developing countries were relegated to the periphery of globalization.