Left behind

India missing out in shaping 21st-century trading norms

These are difficult times for world trade. It appears to be going through something of an inflection point. The broad globalising tendency that began in the late 1990s and accelerated with the expansion of the World Trade Organization in the early 2000s to include the People’s Republic of China in particular is being called into question. Two major trends are fighting for control of the future: First, the efficiency and stickiness of large global trade networks, which have allowed for unprecedentedly low prices of tradable goods and have also raised quality and availability; and, second, the pressure of voters on