Trump Ramps Up Pressure on WTO
April 28 2017 - 9:29PM
Dow Jones News
By Jacob M. Schlesinger
WASHINGTON -- The Trump administration is expanding its
re-examination of longstanding American trade policy, launching a
broad "performance review" of the World Trade Organization with an
eye toward attacking what officials call "structural problems" at
the global body.
"There's an institutional bias on their part toward the
exporters rather than toward the people that are being beleaguered
by inappropriate imports," Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told
reporters Friday in announcing the study.
As part of his campaign to show that he has laid the foundation
for a new "America First" trade policy during his first 100 days in
office, President Donald Trump plans to sign Saturday -- his 100th
day in the White House -- an executive order launching the 180-day
review of the WTO and other trade agreements.
The move comes two days after Mr. Trump said he was strongly
considering signing an order Saturday withdrawing from the North
American Free Trade Agreement, but changed his mind after calls
from his Mexican and Canadian counterparts, and will instead seek a
renegotiation. Mr. Trump also this week said he wanted to
renegotiate or terminate a free-trade agreement with South
Korea.
The pending WTO report is the latest in a growing list of
studies that the White House launched in recent weeks as officials
vow to take a hard look at decades of bipartisan free-trade
agreements. For all of Mr. Trump's harsh rhetoric about
globalization, he has so far actually taken little action to change
the course of American policy. And it's still unclear whether the
WTO probe -- or any of the other reviews on trade deficits, China,
steel, or aluminum -- will yield any concrete results.
But Trump aides say he is laying the groundwork for the
prospects of dramatic change. And the potential challenge to the
WTO could have the most significant repercussions.
In a mid-April speech, Mr. Trump branded the WTO as "another one
of our disasters," and during the presidential campaign he raised
the prospect of the U.S. pulling out of the global body created in
1995.
Mr. Ross was asked repeatedly whether the administration was
considering following up on that threat, and declined to answer
directly. "I didn't say it was on or off the table," he said,
though he suggested the administration's preference was to try to
force change at the WTO, rather than to abandon it. "There's always
the potential for modifying the rules," he said.
Mr. Ross listed a number of the administration's concerns with
the WTO, starting with the fact that the U.S. has trade deficits
with many member countries -- which Trump aides say is a problem,
but most economists dismiss as irrelevant to gauging the country's
commercial well-being.
WTO officials have been hesitant to confront the Trump
administration directly over its complaints. But the organization's
leaders have become increasingly outspoken in defending its role
overseeing the global trading system, in anticipation of a harder
Washington line.
"I think that a dispassionate look at the record shows that the
organization is vital -- and I see no reason to believe that this
is going to change in the near future," WTO director-general
Roberto Azevedo said in speech in Geneva Friday titled "The Future
of the WTO." "Almost none of the global trade challenges we face
today would be easier to solve outside of the multilateral system,"
Mr. Azevdeo said "In fact, the opposite is the case."
Write to Jacob M. Schlesinger at jacob.schlesinger@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 28, 2017 21:14 ET (01:14 GMT)
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