Supply Chains Latest: How a tweet gave birth to a worldwide female trade network - Bloomberg

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In 2017, more than 100 nations vowed to make their trade policies more gender-responsive by signing the 

Buenos Aires Declaration on Trade and Women’s Economic Empowerment.

Two years later, around 26% of the world’s free-trade agreements in place at the time had at least one gender-explicit provision, and earlier this year the World Trade Organization welcomed its first female director-general.

But Swedish trade economist Hanna Norberg says there’s still a “long way to go” to achieve gender parity on trade. That’s why she launched Trade Experettes, an initiative focused on empowering women in trade. It began with a tweet and now has the likes of WTO Deputy Director General Anabel Gonzalez and former European Union Commissioner for Trade and current Peterson Institute senior fellow Cecilia Malmstrom on its advisory board.

Norberg’s decision to take action came after she read an article “in a very prominent American newspaper” that cited 12 trade experts — all of them white men.

Doubting that there were no women experts the newspaper could’ve quoted, she asked her Twitter network for recommendations on female trade specialists. The next day, a list of at least 150 women had emerged in response.

“People started nominating their female colleagues,” said Norberg, who holds a doctorate in economics and international trade from Lund University and has done work for the WTO and European Commission, among others. “And these colleagues were from all over the world. They were in all walks of trade.”

How to Combat Gender Bias Imbedded in Global Trade: Supply Lines 

The tweet spurred female policy makers, negotiators and researchers to start forming a network whose members hail from places that range from Botswana to Costa Rica and Germany. These women — and some of their male peers — meet bimonthly to discuss trade policy and innovation, as well as to plan initiatives that now include a podcast, a mentorship program and a blog featuring members’ research.

More than talking international business and maintaining a database of female professionals, the Trade Experettes have also formed a community to nurture newcomers, Norberg said.

“What we spend a lot of time on — and this is not something that you see on the outside — is to prep up these women,” Norberg said. Mentoring is “about building them up to take that space, to take that podium, to take that leadership role.”

In the “old world of trade,” where the focus was mostly on tariffs, gender didn’t really matter, Norberg said. However, as broader topics such as regulation standards and sustainability become part of trade policies, “you need to ask the right people in the right places, male or female.”

But for women to be in these right places, there needs to be “the yin and the yang,” Norberg said. “Women are underrepresented, and we need that diversity.”

— Augusta Saraiva in Washington

• For the latest on how companies and institutions are confronting gender, race and class, subscribe to the Equality newsletter

Charted Territory

Widening Imbalance

The U.S. trade deficit widened in May to the second-largest on record

Source: U.S. Commerce Department

The U.S. trade gap widened in May as imports outpaced exports. The shortfall in trade of goods and services grew 3.1% to $71.2 billion from a revised $69.1 billion in April, according to Commerce Department data released Friday. That was in line with economist forecasts. Exports advanced 0.6% to $206 billion, while imports climbed 1.3% to $277.3 billion.

Today’s Must Reads

• EU-U.S. talks | The European Union’s digital chief will meet U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen next week as the EU delayed plans for a digital levy after a potential global tax breakthrough.
• Ever free | A giant container ship that had blocked Egypt’s Suez Canal for nearly a week earlier this year will be released on July 7 following an agreement between authorities and the vessel’s owners, the canal operator said Sunday.
• Ending tariffs | A group of Republican lawmakers asked President Joe Biden to end the “self-inflicted harm” his GOP predecessor, Donald Trump, caused in starting a multi-front trade war with China and European allies.
• Cheat alert | Companies inaccurately using “Made in USA” labels will be subject to fines under a Federal Trade Commission rule that requires marketers prove their products are “all or virtually all” made in the country.
• Wheat weather | Record Chinese imports of corn and soybeans have been a powerful driver of global crop markets in recent months, pushing prices to their highest in years. Now bad weather means wheat imports are soaring, too.
• Port sale | Brookfield Asset Management has kicked off the sale of PD Ports, a deal that could value one of the U.K.’s oldest port operators at more than 2 billion pounds ($2.8 billion), according to people familiar with the matter.
• Hungary limits | The country plans to enact export controls on some building materials from October in a bid to slow spiraling price-growth, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said.
• Canada swing | Canada’s international trade balance swung into a deficit in May as exports dropped for a second month and imports recovered.

On the Bloomberg Terminal

• Little room | Automakers have few options for preventing supply disruptions such as the global chip shortage that has dwindled new-vehicle supply — most seriously in the U.S. — though Volkswagen may have more flexibility and Tesla and Toyota the least, Bloomberg Intelligence says.
• New era | Container-shipping rates from Shanghai to Los Angeles rose 7% to $9,165, approaching the once unfathomable level of $10,000. While unsustainable, Bloomberg Intelligence believes rates will remain historically high in 2021 as supply chains work out bottlenecks in the system, coupled with rising demand.
• Use the AHOY function to track global commodities trade flows.
• Click HERE for automated stories about supply chains.
• See BNEF for BloombergNEF’s analysis of clean energy, advanced transport, digital industry, innovative materials, and commodities.
• Click VRUS on the terminal for news and data on the coronavirus and here for maps and charts.

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