{"id":12679,"date":"2018-07-03T02:51:43","date_gmt":"2018-07-03T02:51:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=12679"},"modified":"2018-07-04T02:53:58","modified_gmt":"2018-07-04T02:53:58","slug":"what-is-the-wto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/what-is-the-wto\/","title":{"rendered":"What is the WTO?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/profiles\/stephen-j-silvia-509514\">Stephen J. Silvia<\/a>, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/theconversation.com\/institutions\/american-university-school-of-international-service-2886\">American University School of International Service<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p>President Donald Trump has made the World Trade Organization <a href=\"https:\/\/piie.com\/blogs\/trade-investment-policy-watch\/us-exit-wto-would-unravel-global-trade\">a frequent target<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Recently, he\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/trump-trade-war-leaked-bill-world-trade-organization-united-states-d51278d2-0516-4def-a4d3-ed676f4e0f83.html\">reportedly considering<\/a> suspending U.S. compliance with the global body \u2013 a claim the White House <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-usa-trade-wto\/treasury-chief-mnuchin-slams-report-that-trump-wants-to-exit-wto-idUSKBN1JP1EC\">quickly denied<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>What exactly is the WTO, and would it matter if the U.S. left it? As an international trade <a href=\"https:\/\/scholar.google.com\/citations?user=yNkGbyQAAAAJ&amp;hl=en&amp;oi=ao\">scholar<\/a>, I\u2019d like to start with the history.<\/p>\n<h2>History of the WTO<\/h2>\n<p>Creation of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wto.org\">Geneva-based WTO<\/a> in 1995 was the culmination of a <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/rules-based-trade-made-the-world-rich-trumps-policies-may-make-it-poorer-97896\">50-year effort<\/a> spearheaded by successive U.S. governments to establish and secure a rules-based multilateral trade regime.<\/p>\n<p>Before World War II, European powers imposed harsh trade restrictions against countries outside their empires, which hurt U.S. exporters substantially. This <a href=\"http:\/\/www.press.uchicago.edu\/ucp\/books\/book\/chicago\/C\/bo24475328.html\">also contributed<\/a> to Japan going to war to carve out an \u201cEast Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere\u201d and Nazi Germany attacking eastward to obtain \u201cliving space\u201d \u2013 that is, vassal territories \u2013 nearby.<\/p>\n<p>The 1948 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.investopedia.com\/terms\/g\/gatt.asp\">General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade<\/a>, the WTO\u2019s predecessor, was designed to avoid a repeat of the collapse of trade in the 1930s that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ucpress.edu\/book\/9780520275850\/the-world-in-depression-1929-1939\">worsened the Great Depression<\/a> and to eliminate market access as a reason to go to war. <\/p>\n<h2>A success story<\/h2>\n<p>The result has been spectacularly successful. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.statista.com\/statistics\/264682\/worldwide-export-volume-in-the-trade-since-1950\/\">Country exports<\/a> as a share of global output surged from less than 5 percent in 1948 to over 30 percent today.<\/p>\n<p>This enabled countries to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wto.org\/english\/thewto_e\/whatis_e\/10thi_e\/10thi03_e.htm\">grow faster and steadier<\/a> and brought peace and prosperity to Europe and Japan. <\/p>\n<p>Members of the WTO, which currently number 164, agree to four core principles: <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p>non-discrimination, which means all imports are subject to the same tariff rate, with some exceptions<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>reciprocity, which balances the reduction of barriers and allows for retaliation <\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>transparency<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>decision-making by consensus.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>How it works<\/h2>\n<p>The WTO facilities trade negotiations among member countries to open up markets and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wto.org\/english\/tratop_e\/dispu_e\/dispu_e.htm\">settle disputes<\/a> that arise. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wto.org\/english\/tratop_e\/dda_e\/dda_e.htm\">Subsequent rounds of negotiations<\/a> have allowed countries to take big steps toward trade liberalization, while balancing concessions with benefits. <\/p>\n<p>When disputes arise, such as the <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/george-w-bush-tried-steel-tariffs-it-didnt-work-92904\">Trump steel tariffs<\/a>, impartial panels adjudicate using WTO rules and permit injured countries to sanction violators. The U.S. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wto.org\/english\/tratop_e\/dispu_e\/dispu_by_country_e.htm\">ranks among the most frequent<\/a> and successful users of this, which has helped keep markets open for American exporters.<\/p>\n<h2>What would happen if the US left<\/h2>\n<p>If the U.S. were to leave the WTO, other countries could freely raise tariffs against it. And the U.S. would lose access to the dispute settlement mechanism, which would make retaliation the only response available. <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/counter.theconversation.com\/content\/99274\/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic\" alt=\"The Conversation\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/>This would inevitably raise prices and reduce choice for U.S. consumers, undercut the competitiveness and profitability of companies that rely on imports and slow economic growth. The WTO\u2019s demise would also raise the odds of violent conflict among states.<\/p>\n<p><span><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/profiles\/stephen-j-silvia-509514\">Stephen J. Silvia<\/a>, Professor of International Relations, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/theconversation.com\/institutions\/american-university-school-of-international-service-2886\">American University School of International Service<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p>This article was originally published on <a href=\"http:\/\/theconversation.com\">The Conversation<\/a>. Read the <a href=\"http:\/\/theconversation.com\/what-is-the-wto-99274\">original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Stephen J. Silvia, American University School of International Service President Donald Trump has made the World Trade Organization a frequent target. Recently, he\u2019s reportedly considering suspending U.S. compliance with the global body \u2013 a claim the White House quickly denied. What exactly is the WTO, and would it matter if the U.S. left it? As [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":12672,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[277],"tags":[172,1011,1884,4735,2264,4734,3523,13,2197,4424,1558,104,1600],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12679"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12679"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12680,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12679\/revisions\/12680"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}