Trump vs. the WTO

https://www.axios.com/trump-vs-wto-blocked-appointments-d6eb10e6-f0a9-4c46-b801-71d9836c4c5a.html

Internationalists have always dreamed of a court with jurisdiction over all the countries of the world. In 1995, the World Trade Organization was created — allowing the world’s countries to press claims against one another for the first time.

The state of play: That era lasted just 25 years. As of Tuesday, the Trump administration has, to all intents and purposes, brought it to an end.

Why it matters: When Trump defangs the WTO, almost every country will be hurt, including the U.S., which won a record $7.5 billion WTO award in October after it sued Europe for granting illegal subsidies to Airbus.

How it works:

By blocking all new appointments to the World Trade Organization’s dispute-resolution court, President Trump has allowed it to decline from seven members to three; after two more terms expire today, the court will be left with just one remaining judge.
That’s not enough for the court to issue a binding ruling.
From now on, countries will be able to appeal any ruling they don’t like to the WTO’s highest court. Since that court will have no power to rule against them, they’ll be left free to continue infringing any WTO rule they want.
Flashback: For some 350 years — from the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, which marked the beginning of the modern system of nation-states — no such court existed.

Then, in 1995, the World Trade Organization was created.
For the first time ever, the world’s countries could take one another to court.
Be smart: “America First,” if Trump’s slogan means anything, implies an expansion of unilateralism at the expense of the kind of multilateralism exemplified by the WTO, which marked a post-Cold War high point of international cooperation.

What they’re saying: Carla A. Hills was U.S. Trade Representative when the WTO was created (under President George H.W. Bush). She tells Axios that “we’ve delivered a debilitating hit” to the WTO.

The WTO is already being replaced, she says, by plurilateral arrangements like the Trans Pacific Partnership (which continues without U.S. involvement) and RCEP, the China-dominated Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.
The U.S. Trade Representative’s office referred Axios to a statement made Monday by Dennis Shea, the U.S. ambassador to the WTO. Shea’s main complaint is that the WTO court hasn’t been abiding by its own rules, as laid down in 1995.

David Adams

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