9
votes
International Monetary Fund calls on Indonesia to lift mineral export ban
https://asiatimes.com/2023/07/indonesias-mineral-export-bans-face-hot-global-fire/
JAKARTA – Indonesia is under rising fire at the World Trade Organization and by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the government’s seemingly haphazard policy of banning mineral ore exports, a market intervention Jakarta insists is just and necessary to maximize its economic and industrial growth.
In a sharply worded statement accompanying its 2022 country report, the IMF called for Indonesia to phase out the restrictions and not extend them to other commodities. “The increasing use of trade measures and industrial policies may destabilize the multilateral trade system,” the IMF said.
Yes, how dare a sovereign nation decide that they'd rather keep their resources to support domestic production rather than competing with everyone else to sell it as cheaply as possible?
Frankly, the pressure on smaller nations to remain resource extractors rather than develop domestic industry is harmful to everyone. It's harmful to the nation, as it keeps them in the comparatively unproductive group of nations who are primarily resource extractors, and it's harmful to everyone else because it reduces their need to actually compete or develop domestic extraction to support domestic industry.
I'm not saying that international trade is bad, but splitting nations into extractors, producers, and consumers maintains inequality. To be fair, though, when no nation can stand alone it does mean that there are more "soft power" options to avoid all out war.