Amar Breckenridge is a manager in Frontier Economics' public policy practice, and leads its work on international trade policy.
Amar’s work on trade spans trade policy analysis and modelling, support to dispute settlement and litigation, and trade negotiations. Amar spent five years as a staff economist at the World Trade Organisation prior to joining Frontier.
He is also a member of the Experts Network at ICTSD.
President Donald Trump signed a new executive order on 13 February 2025 mandating “reciprocal tariffs”. The order has far reaching, and not yet fully understood, consequences for international trade and the trading system. We consider effects and possible responses. The new executive order on reciprocal tariffs President Trump’s executive order mandating “reciprocal tariffs” has been […]
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The UK and Switzerland have announced that, after a year of exploratory talks, they would launch negotiations on an “enhanced” Free Trade Agreement (FTA). The two countries also announced that they would try and conclude a mutual recognition agreement on financial services by the end of 2023. We consider some of the issues. Some quirky […]
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The UK and Switzerland have announced that, after a year of exploratory talks, they will start formal negotiations on an “enhanced” Free Trade Agreement (FTA). The two countries had also announced last year that they would try and conclude a mutual recognition agreement on financial services by the end of 2023. We consider some of […]
Read moreThe EU’s new approach to trade policy is based around the idea of “strategic autonomy”. The expression covers a number of proposals. One set of proposals reflects the EU’s desire to punish trade partners for “bad behaviour”. This might include state financial support to businesses that the engage in mergers and acquisitions in the EU; […]
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And so, in the final watch of the night, the WTO’s negotiators cast their nets one final time, and reeled in a collection of declarations and decisions. The “Geneva Package” isn’t a haul of biblical proportions. But it did include a multilateral agreement, that has been over 20 years in the making, on eliminating the […]
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The consequences of the war in Ukraine will be far reaching because the conflict is acting as a catalyst for deep-seated shifts in global economic governance, and trade in particular. Nearly fifty days after Russia invaded Ukraine, the costs of war are escalating at every level. The death toll, difficult to determine for a variety […]
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With COP-26 starting today and one month to go until the 12th WTO ministerial conference, the trade-climate nexus is under the spotlight yet again. We will host a panel to discuss these questions. You can register here. In the meantime, here is a quick overview of some of the questions by way of background. We […]
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After long and arduous negotiations, the European Union and the United Kingdom signed a Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) on 24 December 2020. The agreement establishes the basis for the relationship between the two parties from 1 January 2021 onwards. The TCA largely corresponds to what we projected close to 3 years ago, given the […]
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What could the election of Joseph R. Biden Jr. mean for US trade policy? Trade policy did not feature highly in the run up to the election (in contrast to 2016). And the immediate focus of the Biden administration is likely to be on dealing with Covid-19 and recovering from it. Its “Build back better” […]
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The Covid 19 pandemic has had a severe impact on international trade . The WTO recently projected that global trade could fall in real terms by upto 20% in 2020. A modest recovery could take place in 2021, but this is heavily dependent on the future course of Covid 19, measures taken in response, and […]
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