Green Subsidies Database : Data for Unfair Advantage - Distortive Subsidies and Their Effects on Global Trade (English)

Government subsidies have emerged as a flashpoint in the geopolitical tensions that threaten to undermine the global rules-based trading system. Subsidies are among the tools deployed by the world's major economies to tackle climate change, gain an edge in frontier technologies, and revamp supply chains disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine. Yet, even when deployed in pursuit of legitimate goals, subsidies can harm trading partners, fuel tensions, and provoke countermeasures. They can 0ify the benefits of global trade and investment by distorting international prices and limiting market access, as in the case of local content requirements, and they can create inefficiencies in global value chains. Because the international trading system is ill-equipped to discipline the use of subsidies, governments increasingly are responding with countervailing tariffs or subsidies of their own when they can afford it.