President Piñera at the G20 leaders summit in Japan: "Growing protectionism weakens the global economy, trade and investment and harms all countries"
Addressing the Heads of State and Presidents of the G20 member countries, including Donald Trump of the United States and Xi Jinping of China, the President made a powerful call for the promotion of rules that will guarantee fair and transparent trade, and for progress towards integration to continue to be made.
President Sebastián Piñera highlighted the need to foster the modernization of global trade rules and regional integration in response to the increasing protectionism that is damaging the global economy.
Speaking at the first plenary session of the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan last Friday, the president said that [countries are] "reacting with growing protectionism that is weakening the global economy, weakening international trade, weakening investments and harming all countries."
Given this situation, the President of Chile stressed, "the urgency of modernizing the World Trade Organization and creating a mechanism for settling disputes, establishing rules that guarantee fair trade and are transparent, without distorting subsidies, and that protect intellectual property."
"These actions are being decided by thinking unilaterally," said President Piñera, who called for "further progress in integration at the regional level."
The President was one of the speakers at the G20 session focused on finance, taxes, the fight against corruption, trade and investment.
The G20 is the main international forum for economic, financial and political cooperation. Its main points of focus this year include the search for specific actions to boosting growth potential, together with providing greater impetus to the reform of the WTO in order to restore trust in the multilateral system for the exchange of goods and services.