The US-China trade war: The unprecedented crisis of the World Trade Organization

Abstract

The US-China trade war has caused a great deal of disturbance to the international trading system. It has involved the largest two economic powers in the world with a substantial increase in trade barriers that has affected most of the trading exchange between the two countries. What is more concerning, however, is that such reciprocal trade barriers of retaliatory and counter-retaliatory measures were imposed outside the scope of the WTO and its dispute settlement mechanism. The US-China trade war has sidelined the WTO, exposing defects and weaknesses in its ability to deal with such situations. This article seeks to understand the causes of the US-China trade war and the WTO’s failure to prevent it, and explore options to improve the WTO system’s ability to deal with similar conflicts to maintain the efficiency of its role as the main international body governing global trade and its position as a guarantor of the rules and principles of the freedom of international trade.