Donald Trump tells WTO to halt its lenient trade treatment of China, says US might impose its own rules
- The US says if it doesn’t get the changes it wants, it will not apply ‘developing country’ status to countries it thinks no longer qualify for special treatment
- Trump says ‘the status quo cannot continue’
The Trump administration opened a new front in its quest to reform the global trade system on Friday by demanding that the World Trade Organisation update its definitions of “developing country” status and remove the favourable treatment that ranking brings to nations like China, its main trade rival.
If it doesn’t get the change it wants, the administration said, it is willing to go it alone and will not apply that status to countries within the WTO it believes no longer qualify for special treatment.
The benefits of the developing country status, the White House said in a statement, include “longer time frames for imposing safeguards, generous transition periods, softer tariff cuts, procedural advantages for WTO disputes, and the ability to avail themselves of certain export subsidies – all at the expense of other WTO members.”
In the memo, Trump directed US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to “use all available means” to change the WTO rules that allow countries to claim this status when economic data does not justify the special treatment.
“The WTO is in desperate need of reform,” the memo says, citing definitions that hark back to its founding in 1995 and do not take into account the vast changes in economic status for nations such as China, which is now the second largest economy and largest exporting nation in the world.
