sound a warning from the chief economist of the world trade organization a member nations to play by the rules businesses around the world are going to start thinking that the rules no longer apply in increases uncertainty in economic activity and they stopped investing and they stopped trading. he was speaking with us who will be moving amongst you very very shortly this is due to. my first vice like i was just sewing machine. where i come from women are balanced by this. something as simple as going to write them by side isn't. since i resented them. and it took me as them until they. finally gave up and went on buying and i say that and returns because sewing machine sewing i suppose was more appropriate for goes than writing a. novel i want to meet those woman back home put downs by them and social

rules and inform them about the basics why. my name is the about of the who and i work. a deal with the message mexico or the e.u. agree on overall that trade agreement as companies are on of a fast fear us president protectionist policies. and all those wars really justified we speak to the w t o's chief economist who says no world trade is going well bout all that talk about a trade war is dangerous for the global economy. this is the business line

from this president trump's threats of tariffs are actually sparking more cooperation from rival economies with mexico and the european union taking a stand for free trade both sides overhauling an old trade deal abolishing almost all tariffs between the german chancellor. mexico's president enrique pena and they have to open the mexican exhibition stand out the industrial tech fair in hanover today said he's optimistic that a renewal of the north american free trade agreement also could be achieved and that would benefit not only mexican companies. for german engineering companies like partial export mexico is a very enticing prospect on the one hand as a market for production robots and other engineering equipment but also as a production location something german car makers in particular have capitalized on mexico's geographic location makes it a perfect platform for exports to the u.s.

those factors have attracted over ten billion dollars of german investment germany is now the country's third largest trade partner after the u.s. and china. over the last five years mexico has launched important structural reforms as a basis for future development. for your to make it a center of opportunity. and above all to show investors that we are a trustworthy country. on their joint tour of the one over message trade for german chancellor angela merkel told mexico's president to trade ties between the two countries are also set to expand under the new e.u. mexico free trade agreement but security still poses a major problem along with corruption mexico is also in the midst of tough nafta free trade negotiations with the u.s. and the country elect a new president in july but those uncertainties are unlikely to scare off german

investors. german companies find the strings in opportunities mexico hold weigh the risks of continuing to expand their mexican operations especially in the automobile industry and in the sea it's mechanical engineering and if the trade here between the e.u. and makes the call goes through the partnership with even stronger. there are reporters stephen beardsley is also at the head of a trade for for us the trade fellow asked him if that trade agreement between mexico and the e.u. can also be seen as a broad hint towards the white house. it's obviously it has a lot of symbolism there it is of course there is something substantial to it as well obviously this is an update to agreement that was struck twenty one years ago that mostly deal with industrial products this deals with agricultural products as you said this is also symbolic though but of course mexico needs more than a free trade agreement with the e.u. because of the outsized role the u.s.

plays in its trade so it's going to have to go a little bit further but this is something that's very symbolic about the meaning of free trade and the value of free trade to both countries germany and mexico seem to have a fair a circus in the latest in industrial technology but i'm american said today german companies have quite some catching up to do when it comes to areas like artificial intelligence intelligence buys that. you know that's a widely held view here not just among the american but also among businesses and analysts who are looking at this obviously one of the reasons there are several reasons for this one of the reasons it's widely seen is that germany is very successful with its small and mid-size manufacturing businesses it has a very strong strong industrial economy based on these businesses that would probably rather stay doing what they're doing than trying to sort of innovate with something like artificial intelligence and moving outside of what they see as successful another possible reason behind this is that there are strong data

protection laws here and also strong desires for data protection in germany and in the e.u. and that can make companies hesitant to really sort of wade into artificial intelligence talk among those with intelligence any particular piece of technology that code your attention today. right get heard there's a lot of interesting things here robots aren't necessarily novel but the developments of some of these robots are pretty novel if you look behind me here you can see i'm not sure if it's running in this moment but there is this robot here that actually. as arms and fingers normally see arms here that's pretty common they have little pads on them this one right here has fingers what makes this especially interesting is that the person who's driving it who's steering this robot does it by moving her hands or know if you can see her right now she's just getting it warmed up but the robot will mimic her movements so that if she actually clinches her fingers clinches her fist it will do the same thing and what this

makes possible is this means that you don't have to program a robot basically to get it to do the things you want to do you have to show it with your movements one time the actions that you want to make and then it will follow after that that makes it much easier for businesses to sort of get into robotics without having a programmer on board perhaps. steve vizard that the head of a trifle for us thank you very much. so all we hear about recently is tariffs trade rules on protectionism do we have to get used to that is free trade on the way out or is what we're seeing right now just a historical aberration fueled by an isolationist in the white house questions i'd like to discuss with he's a chief economist of the world trade organization and joins us now from munich mr hope on well trained seems to be in a very sorry state lately would you agree and not actually will trade has been

growing very strongly just past couple of years after a period of very slow growth for about five years but for the last couple of years we've seen a recovery particularly last year and so far this year trades been growing very strongly despite all the rhetoric but despite all the better all we hear about this trade war trade war it's just this talk what kind of influence does it have. well talk can have a significant influence particularly if firms stop investing in consumers stop buying things so it can have this chilling effect on economic activity. so the kinds of discuss her talk we've heard recently around tariffs between the u.s. and china that will have a direct effect that will slow trade in those goods between those two countries and that could have a impact on economic activity the bigger impact is not the direct effect it's the indirect effect when it starts to affect investment behavior and consumer decision

making. how much of all that is down to all the troubles that we seem to see in world trade how much of that is down to mr trump's policies but i think the rhetoric that's been coming from the united states doesn't really help build confidence in global trade relations the u.s. has a number of complaints that we at the w t o take very seriously other w t o members have expressed concerns and can and complaints and there's a need definitely for w t o members to come together and talk about what kind of trading system they want and how they can improve the rules going forward but this rhetoric of of late in terms of implying tariffs unilaterally without going through w t o dispute mechanisms gives us great concern that firms businesses around the world are going to start thinking that the rules no longer apply in increases

uncertainty in economic activity and they stop investing and they stop trading those dollars maybe also have a point when he says that we need to look again at free trade if single countries like the us don't feel the benefits especially the ordinary people don't feel the benefits. what's interesting is i think that ordinary people feel most of the benefits it's just that it's it's in their lower prices and the greater variety of goods that they get to buy every day it's very diffuse it's very spread out across many many people the people who complain more about it of the firms the feel like they're unable to compete with foreign imports and their workers and that's a much more concentrated group of people and they tend to be more vocal they organize because they're more concentrated they have their whole organize and complain about the effects of trade our research has shown that the big much bigger

effects on employment in competitiveness come about from technological change automation robot ties ation we face a i fish the intelligence going forward so i think there are a lot of challenges but most of those are domestically generated not necessarily generated across borders is the w t o as the organization really in charge for what's right is it doing enough do you think well there's been a number of years where members have not been able to agree to talk about new issues or to talk about some of these longstanding issues that members have concerns around because they've been caught up in in a round called the doha round where there was a very particular set of issues that have been going on for on most fifteen years meanwhile the the global economy has changed dramatically the world has moved on and because of these longstanding differences about how to resolve the old issues

which are very important by the way but members have not been able to move forward and talk about these newer issues which are increasingly important to global economic activity. chief economist of the world trade organization talking to us from munich thank you very much. and that's that's from me and the business team here in that. the ones who will have an update for you a full additional d w business in a nice job in the meantime check all twitter and facebook pages before you go here's a check up on global markets at this hour thank you very much for watching. it's

one of nature's most perfectly designed machines. dung beetle. it can transport a thousand times its own body weight. traversing rough terrain is no problem. but is it possible to replicate these capabilities with robots. tomorrow today next on d w.

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