It is time to ask: For the U.S., does the international law of the World Trade Organization still exist?
As part of an escalating tit-for-tat of trade restrictions between the U.S. and China, the Chinese government has banned the export of several critical materials that have both commercial and military applications in high-tech production. This Chinese action may or may not be eligible for a national security exception to the general rule in WTO law that forbids export bans and other export restrictions.
Yet in responding to this latest trade move by China in the renewed trade conflict between the two countries, the U.S. government did not mention WTO law. Nor, in reporting on the event, did the U.S. media.
For the U.S., it is as if this international law no longer exists.
This omission is increasingly commonplace in the U.S. In imitation of the first Trump administration, the Biden administration has spent the past four years mostly ignoring WTO law.
Trump’s illegal tariffs on $360 billion in imports of Chinese goods have remained in place, and a 100 percent tariff has been imposed on imported Chinese vehicles. WTO rulings declaring those tariffs to be illegal under international law have been ignored.
Under President Biden, U.S. trade negotiators rarely mention WTO obligations. And although they still show up at the WTO in Geneva, they have made it all too clear to the........