STORY: Global leaders call for free trade at World Economic Forum amid rising tensions
SHOOTING TIME: Jan. 21, 2025
DATELINE: Jan. 23, 2025
LENGTH: 00:02:22
LOCATION: GENEVA, Switzerland
CATEGORY: POLITICS

SHOTLIST:
1. various of the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting
2. SOUNDBITE 1 (English): URSULA VON DER LEYEN, European Commission President
3. SOUNDBITE 2 (Germany): OLAF SCHOLZ, German Chancellor
4. SOUNDBITE 3 (English): KARIN KELLER-SUTTER, President of the Swiss Confederation
5. SOUNDBITE 4 (English): NGOZI OKONJO-IWEALA, WTO Director-General


STORYLINE:

Global leaders have urged cooperation to prevent trade tensions and protectionism at the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting, which began on Monday.

SOUNDBITE 1 (English): URSULA VON DER LEYEN, European Commission President
"The world's major economies are vying for access to raw materials, new technologies, and global trade routes as this competition intensifies. We will likely continue to see frequent use of economic tools, such as sanctions, export controls, and tariffs. But it is important that we balance the imperative to safeguard our security against our opportunity to innovate and enhance our prosperity. In this spirit, we will need to work together to avoid a global race to the bottom, because it is in no one's interest to break the bonds of the global economy. Rather, we need to modernize the rules, to sustain our ability to produce mutual gain for our citizens."

SOUNDBITE 2 (Germany): OLAF SCHOLZ, German Chancellor
"Isolation will hurt prosperity. We will defend free trade as the basis of our prosperity together with other partners."

SOUNDBITE 3 (English): KARIN KELLER-SUTTER, President of the Swiss Confederation
"The free trade in goods and services has reduced poverty in many parts of the world, and made humanity as a whole more prosperous. It would be wrong to forget this. I'm sure I'm not the only one in this room who is concerned about the very high and rising debt levels in many countries. They not only pose a risk for those countries, but also a threat to the stability of the international financial markets. No market is more globalized than the financial market. And financial market stability can therefore only be achieved multilaterally."

SOUNDBITE 4 (English): NGOZI OKONJO-IWEALA, WTO Director-General
"Yes. Tariffs, we don't want a tariff war, because all the modeling shows that this will not really benefit anyone, the U.S., the rest of the world. It's going to be inflationary in many cases. And I think this is to the benefit of the world that we still need to try to work together to make sure we keep open and predictable markets."

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Geneva, Switzerland.
(XHTV)