Bung import tariffs on US imports, page-14

Trump’s go-it-alone approach to China trade ignores WTO’s better way to win​

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1. ​
   Charles Hankla
   Associate Professor of Political Science, Georgia State University

The WTO dispute settlement process has been good for the United States. Since 1995, America has brought actions against 117 other WTO members, and has been on the receiving end of 136 complaints. Research shows that the U.S. tends to have better odds of winning cases at the WTO than other countries. Just recently, the United States won cases against the European Union, India, Indonesia and Mexico.
It is true that Trump has said he plans to use the WTO process to contest China’s technology transfer policy. But his unilateral imposition of $60 billion of tariffs on China risks not only a damaging trade war but also undercuts any chances for the U.S. to build the type of international coalition necessary to force real changes.

A U.S.-China trade war, one undertaken outside the WTO process, will be seen by other countries as a fight between two powers that are equally in the wrong. Indeed, China is ​

already moving​

effectively to take the high ground in the dispute.​

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The real problem​

More to the point, Trump’s unilateral approach to China risks conflating the real problem of China’s intellectual property theft with the broader, and more contested, issue of the U.S.-China trade balance.
Some economists question whether the U.S. should be worried about the trade balance at all, and there is also some question about the extent that unfair Chinese practices are contributing to the problem.
Whatever the case, tariffs are not going to fix the structural issues contributing to the imbalance. For that, the U.S. will need to increase its competitiveness or reduce American consumption, a much taller order.

https://theconversation.com/trumps-...ignores-wtos-better-way-to-win-93918[/BCOLOR]

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