Mohamed A. El-Erian , Columnist

U.S. Prevails in an Unusual G-20 Communique

Other countries line up behind a protectionist stance.

March 20, 2017 at 5:39 AM UTC

Mohamed A. El-Erian is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A former chief executive officer of Pimco, he is president of Queens’ College, Cambridge; chief economic adviser at Allianz SE; and chair of Gramercy Fund Management. He is author of “The Only Game in Town.”

Winning.
Photographer: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images

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In one of the most highly anticipated Group of 20 communiques in a long time, the U.S. administration appears to have prevailed over the objections of many countries, including from Europe, Australia and China.

In an outcome that not so long ago would have been deemed unlikely, the communique dropped the world's most economically influential countries' explicit opposition to protectionism and, instead, came up with what Bloomberg Markets calls "a fudged statement on trade."