PROTECTIONISM IN CONDITIONS OF WORLD TRADE MULTIPOLARITY

Abstract

In terms of the formation of the world trade multipolar system, the issues concerning the implementation of a protectionist trade policy appear especially acute and are the primary focus of both theorists and practitioners. This paper primarily aims to explore trade protectionism in the global economy in conditions of multipolarity, to identify the vectors of the war in Ukraine's influence on policy in the sphere of food trade, to determine the origins of the WTO crisis in the system of multilateral regulation of international trade and to assess the prospects of further ensuring free trade doctrines, which is based on combinatorial approach and included the calculation of quantitative indicators of foreign trade restrictiveness and estimation of qualitative parameters of shifts in foreign trade policy. The empirical findings indicate high dynamism of increasing new trade restrictions, in particular export ones, caused at first by the COVID-19 pandemic and later by the war in Ukraine; slow but constant increase in import restrictions, so that at the end of 2022 9% of global import was affected by import restrictions; growth in export restrictive measures on food, feed and fertilizers as a response to food security challenges, caused by the war in Ukraine. The current paper reveals the necessity to take into account import dependence indicators and import capacity of export in formulating vectors of transformation of foreign trade policy towards national production support in the context of economic nationalism ideology. The authors emphasize the importance of the WTO dispute settlement system and the failures in its implementation call into question the possibility of organization functioning in the existing format, particularly as the number and spread of RTAs surged. Prospects for further research in this area are the assessment of macroeconomic effects and threats of the unilateral opening of the Ukrainian economy for imports against the background of the protectionist policy of "main players" of the world economy, determination of the potential of the protectionist policy of selective types of economic activity implementation in the conditions of post-war recovery.