The article examines the transformation of US social security trust funds in view of pension benefits guarantees. It is pointed out main approaches to solving the growing gap between the volume of payroll taxes and outlays for each year. According to the Social Security Board of Trustees, the asset reserves are expected to be exhausted in the fourth decade of the current century and future retirees could face problems with retirement benefits. Meanwhile, it’s an important point of each candidate’s agenda before presidential elections. One of the approaches for keeping the financial stability of the Social Security Act till the end of the current century and beyond is raise payroll taxes. But this proposal is not popular among republicans. President D. Trump's position on Social Security is not to increase payroll taxes or the age of retirement, but to stimulate economic growth which make it possible to collect more payroll taxes for Social Security system. At the same time the key priority of D. Trump’s administration in the field of strengthening retirement security in America is development of individual pension plans.

The article analyzes the possibilities of developing countries to use special economic zones (SEZs) to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) as a source of economic growth, especially in times of global economic downturn. Special economic zones have played and continue to play an important role as drivers of the global economy, passing through themselves about 30 percent of world trade and affecting the growth of well-being and prosperity of people around the world. Each zone is unique and has its own specialization. Subject to a well-thoughtout concept, political will, the maintenance of an adequate infrastructure, and the use of world best practices, SEZs help to attract investments to create jobs, increase income and export, receive foreign exchange, connect to international supply chains and develop indirect employment outside the SEZ, but inside economies that accept FDI. The impact of SEZs on FDI inflows is examined using examples from different geographical regions. More than two thirds of the SEZ managed to attract FDI to their territory, and about half – significant. The leaders in attracting foreign direct investment are zones created on the territory of developing countries and especially Asian states. Among the top ten zones for attracting FDI, eight zones have been created in the developing world. In our opinion, these results can be considered essential for the further study, use and improvement of the SEZ instrument as an investment driver of developing economies.

The article discusses issues related to the general decline in the world economy on the background of coronavirus infection. The authors attempt to analyze the consequences of the introduction of quarantine and isolation for the population of most countries, as a measure to constrain the pandemic. The article presents changes in the gross domestic product of the countries most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020 compared to the same period in 2019, and a special place there is given to Russia. The authors also consider the crucial changes in the international pension system and suggest possible solutions to this problem. The article puts forward and substantiates the hypothesis that the reasons for such a significant drop in the economy include hard economic problems formed long before the pandemic. This includes an analysis of the recession on the income of large international corporations included in the S & P 500 international index. This article identifies the main key problems of the international economy and suggests the main ways to solve them. It also provides a forecast of further development of the economic situation, with regard to the current state.

China is one of the developing countries with the most rapid development and the U.S. is de-veloped country with the strongest economic strength, economic development of the two coun-tries has become main impetus of the world economic growth. Sino-US bilateral trade has be-come the most important constituent part of global trade. With the rapid development of Sino-US bilateral trade, trade imbalance also lead great concern of the two governments and academic circles, especially after China entered into WTO, the problem of Sino-US trade imbalance be-come even more serious. This paper mainly analyzes the influence of macroeconomic factors on China-US trade deficit, as economists generally believe that savings and exchange rates are closely related to trade balance. Undervalued exchange rate can keep relatively low prices for products made in China, while the booming domestic demand in the United States provides China with a wide variety of external market opportunities. This paper points out that difference in saving rates between the two countries is an important macroeconomic reason for the contin-ued growth of China’s trade surplus with the United States in international trade. The RMB exchange rate is an influencing factor, but not a fundamental one.

The research of integration development processes within the framework of the EAEU in the current conditions of general slowdown in global economic growth, decrease in production rates, unfavorable conditions in certain market segments, and energy price volatility seems to be an urgent task. The basis for the integration of the EAEU member countries is the formation of common markets for goods and services, the development degree of which in many respects depends on the strategic direction of further deepening and expanding of their mutual cooperation, national competitiveness increasing, as well as the success of integration into the global trade and economic architecture. The purpose of the study is to analyze the current stage of mutual trade of the Eurasian Union member countries and to determine the main advantages of development of goods and services common markets. The study is based on the hypothesis that the integration processes in the Eurasian space development promote stabilization of the transformation processes, preserve old and develop new trade and economic relations between the member countries of the Eurasian Union. General scientific methods of analysis, logical generalization and comparison were used to characterize the dynamics of mutual trade of the EAEU countries, to identify existing problems in its development, to determine the integration benefits of the EAEU countries from the common markets’ development, taking into account the national interests of each country. In the course of the study, the authors have presented the arguments that all the EAEU member countries received certain advantages from the integration processes development: there is an increase in mutual trade in goods and services within the Eurasian Union, the tightness of economic ties that will contribute to the development of both inter-industry and intra-industry mutual cooperation in many economic areas within the framework of emerging common markets. At the same time, a number of contradictions and problems have been identified that require solution and coordination of actions between the countries of the Eurasian Union in order to achieve future economic growth and competitiveness increase.

Modern conditions of the world economy are characterized by a significant restriction of world economic relations, which is caused by the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting decline in economic activity in national economies, which coincided with international sanctions practices and falling oil prices. This created new conditions for international trade and required export-oriented companies to adapt quickly. This ability is most inherent in small and medium-sized businesses, which can become the engine of the national economy, including through the implementation of export potential. The purpose of the analysis: taking into account the global economic trends caused by the coronavirus pandemic, to make recommendations on the development of export support measures for Russian small and medium-sized enterprises. Methodological support was provided by an analysis of the world economic situation and its forecasts, taking into account the opinions of domestic and foreign researchers, as well as an analysis of existing export support measures. The analysis showed that the pandemic factor contributed to the strengthening of geo-economic instability and fragmentation of the economic space. A decrease in economic activity leads to a reduction in exports and imports of countries, which changes the international maps of supply and demand. Under these conditions, state support for exports-informational, legal, consulting, marketing, analytical, and organizational – is valuable for small and medium-sized enterprises, taking into account the possibilities of digitalization, new foreign trade and legal realities, including sanctions practices, technical standards, and restrictions caused by the pandemic, based on industry specifics, and changing international supply and demand maps. Appropriate recommendations are proposed

The article deals with analysis of the main approaches to assessing non-tariff measures of government foreign trade regulation on foreign trade indicators. The article lists the factors which make it difficult to solve the problem: diversity of non-tariff measures, their using not only at the border but also within the country, effect uncertainty and frequent lack of quantification of such measures. It is also noted that non-tariff measures effects are usually determined by assessing changes in volumes and terms of trade with various methods. The frequency analysis method defines the coverage of imported goods by non-tariff measures as a share in the volume of imports or in the number of commodity items. The price gap assessment method defines the changes in the in-country prices under the influence of non-tariff measures. Survey method allows to obtain various estimates of these measures effects from business, index analysis method – to calculate index assessments of non-tariff measures effects, including based on survey data. Econometric method estimates the qualitative effects of non-tariff measures, including changes in the volume of exports or imports. The article considers each of these methods with the highlighting of their advantages and disadvantages.

The article focuses on strengthening of protectionism policy and on trade defense measures, which significantly influence the current global steel market situation. The detailed analyses of the type, product scope and potential effect on international iron and steel market was conducted. The characteristics of the crisis period of exceed capacities problem caused by structural disbalance of global supply and demand in combination with the further steel products consumption decline are presented in the article. The particular focus is on the effectiveness evaluation of protectionism policy on the national level taken the US steel market as an example. The study concludes that protectionism policy of 2017-2019 not only has not solved the global problem of steel exceed capacities, but also escalated national level challenges: lack of motivation of local manufactures to decrease emissions, high unemployment rate and consumer product prices growth. The core outcome of the article is that unbased import trade barriers in steel sector are ineffective for global and national problems solving and that the only way is to implement coordinated actions by the major global steel market players.