The Trump administration’s plan to upend the WTO

Now the WTO may be confronting a true existential threat brought on by the Trump administration, even at a moment when COVID-19 has severely limited its activities and its “leader,” Director General Roberto Azevedo, announced his departure a year before the end of his term. This new threat comes in the form of an announcement by the US Trade Representative (USTR) Ambassador Robert Lighthizer that the administration plans to “reset” its tariffs, which have been bound at an average rate of roughly 3.4 percent as the result of decades of give-and-take trade negotiations.