All eyes in the trade world are fixed on the United States and China, with the world's two largest economies locked in negotiations that could shape the contours of global commerce into the next decade.
The issues on the table — technology transfer, intellectual property, cloud computing and the push by the U.S. to gain a bigger foothold for their financial and high-tech service industries — encompass the big battlefields of the 21st century economy. But a more telling look at the future of world trade might be found elsewhere, in disputes involving mundane commodities currently besetting Australia and Canada.
Both have had very public political battles recently with China. They now have something else in common: Some of their key exports are being shunned by Chinese buyers. The country's importers started banning canola shipments in March from Canadian processors, citing contamination worries. In recent months, Chinese ports have also been turning away Australian thermal coal, on vaguely worded environmental grounds.