Why The U.S. Needs The World Trade Organization

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Publish Date:
September 20, 2016
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Source:
The Washington Post
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Summary

This year’s election season is full of talk about restricting trade — both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have criticized the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which would liberalize trade between the United States and 11 other Pacific Rim countries.

Trump also took a swipe at the World Trade Organization (WTO), telling NBC’s Chuck Todd that he would consider pulling out of the organization because it is a “disaster.”

1) How does the WTO work? The WTO regulates more than 98 percent of global trade flows among its 164 member countries. Its job is to monitor international trade rules, reduce trade barriers, and settle disputes. Established on Jan. 1, 1995, the WTO replaced the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which had regulated interstate commerce since 1948.

WTO members must give each other “most-favored-nation” (MFN) status, which means a nondiscriminatory low tariff rate. So the 35 percent tariff on Mexican imports and 45 percent tariff on Chinese imports Donald Trump proposed would be a “flagrant violation” of WTO rules, according to Stanford legal scholar Alan O. Sykes.

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