DE1: International Trade

This event runs from Monday, 4/4 through Friday, 4/8 (11pm AZ time).

In this Event, the 8 Zemia nations, the IPC, and Redento will trade for the following three resource commodities: Food (grain, meat, processed food), and Materials (metals, lumber, textiles, etc), and Energy (crude/refined sources and energy production). Each entity has some but not all of these resources. Trades made in this round are continual trade agreements but they can be broken by any party in any round. During the State Games, groups will be penalized if they do not maintain (or obtain) a net value of 0 or higher for Food and Material commodities; a slight deficit in Energy commodities is allowed (see Objectives).

Groups know the values of their three commodities: Production (+), Consumption(-), and Net (total). If there is a net negative value, the nation/group must trade to provide sufficient resources for their populations, and ideally achieve net 0 (i.e., production + trade >= consumption).

Black-market trading is suspected in both Cavan, Redento, and some tribes within the IPC, so a portion of their commodities is available for half-price (e.g., 1 of their Metal units is worth 2 Metals to other nations). The UN encourages international trade (and knows nation/groups’ resource totals) but discourages the black market trading because of the crime and human rights violations that often accompany it. The UN may establish penalties to discourage black market trades (e.g., impose embargoes on certain nation/groups). Only the trading groups and Secretary-General Lennon will know about black market trades and these (if they dare to occur) should be documented in DARs emailed directly to her.

Trade Agreements: Several Zemian nations/groups are concerned about the labor standards in both their own territory and their trading partners’. To be ideologically consistent, these nation/groups may include stipulations, such as minimum wage and working conditions, in their trade agreements. Provide a name for each of your trade agreements (e.g., “US-Mexico-Canada Agreement” or something more creative).

IPC relations and impact: Indigenous peoples are integral to Zemia’s commodity extraction and production. One tribe, the Ukugan in Kurgan, controls units of each of Kurgan’s commodity types. The Birshin Isles (indigenous region that is autonomous from any nation but not part of the UN) has a substantial fishing industry. Several other tribes provide the primary labor resources for extracting/harvesting their host nations’ commodities. Specifically, the Dinuits extract a majority of Redento’s phosphorus, Kurganites compose 40% of Donethal’s oil plant employees, Rajpurs compose half of Khulna’s nuclear plant employees, and Zemuits compose 30% of Khulna’s oil plant employees and 40% of Amuria’s lithium/cobalt miners.

Objectives:

To receive their full 5 Objective points, each nation must ensure that their Food and Material resources are met ("0") or have surplus (i.e., positive number). Small nations (<15 million population), must ensure that their Energy resources are no lower than a -2 deficit (i.e., -2, -1, 0, or positive number). Large nations need to ensure that their Energy resources are no lower than a -5 deficit (-5 or higher). Partial points are awarded to teams that ensure these minimums are met in 1 or 2 of these resources.

The UN earns 5 DE if all nations meet their minimums, and 2 additional DE points if 5 nations avoid the black market.

Submit DAR(s) that indicate trading partners and specific terms (e.g., Cavan trades 1 energy to Dacca in exchange for 3 Food) to GoogleSite DARs Depository by Fri, 10/22 (11pm AZ) or secret/private DARs to Sec-Gen Lennon.

NOTE: Regardless of how each country concludes this diplomatic event, they must maintain minimums in the trade categories (energy, agriculture and metals) throughout the entire semester. (One could lose units as a result of a treaty being broken, or never signed. You would need to create a new DAR to secure the deficiency if that were the case). IF you do not, your economy will not function properly and growth will be slowed in the following way. If one commodity is negative, the ER growth multiplier slows to 1.25 x ER. If two commodities are negative the ER growth multiplier stalls to 1. If all 3 commodities are negative, the economy shrinks, so ER is reduced by 10% (e.g., next round budget is .9 x ER of prior round). These multipliers will remain in effect until the situation is remedied with a further DAR filed in the depository.

You may want to:

• Find out what the other nations need; the UN could assist with this. The table below shows general info to get you started.

• Develop alliances to pool/share your resources. Similarly, your alliance partners might opt out later or join another alliance.

Initial commodity values (standardized), by commodity type: