After Paris agreement next is WTO? Treasury Chief Mnuchin Slams Report That Trump Wants To Exit WTO

[rainman + 263]

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said on Friday a report by the Axios news website, that cited sources as saying President Donald Trump wanted the United States to withdraw from the World Trade Organization, was wrong.Axios reported earlier on Friday, citing people who were involved in discussions with the president, that Trump frequently told advisers he wanted the United States to quit the WTO, a move with potentially disastrous implications for global commerce. “This is an exaggeration,” Mnuchin said. “The president has been clear, with us and with others, he has concerns about the WTO, he thinks there’s aspects of it that are not fair, he thinks that China and others have used it to their own advantage, but we are focused on free trade. That’s what we’re focused on - breaking down barriers.” One person who has discussed the subject with Trump, according to Axios, said the president frequently told advisers: “I don’t know why we’re in it. The WTO is designed by the rest of the world to screw the United States.”
 

[ThunderBlade + 231]

Step by step.... WTO, NATO, UN, PA, TTPA... what is next? 

[jpZelabal + 63]

Bad message. Isolationism. Protectionism. Tactics proven by history to be failures.

[franco + 96]

So, today, Axios reported that Trump wants to withdraw the U.S. from the WTO. But, Russia's state TV reported the same thing, nine days ago... Source: https://youtu.be/dCHkwopHrq0?t=336...

 

[damirUSBiH + 327]

So, what is the truth? Or the truth is halfway....

[pinto + 293]

15 minutes ago, rainman said:

.... “This is an exaggeration,” Mnuchin said. “The president has been clear, with us and with others, he has concerns about the WTO, he thinks there’s aspects of it that are not fair.... 
 

That’s a yes or no required response. “Exaggeration” is not an appropriate answer.

[franco + 96]

Yep, Pinto. "Exaggeration" implies that the fundamentals are true but have been amplified...

[Pavel + 384]

This is just like an administration ( not just this one) handled plans or decisions. For example, they floated the idea, kept talking about it to get people used to it and then did it. Looks like the same strategy here.

[Guillaume Albasini + 851]

I think the strategy is to stay in the WTO to undermine the organization.

 

The United States has thrown the WTO into crisis by blocking the appointment of new judges, undermining its dispute settlement system. U.S. officials have declined to discuss what would persuade them to lift their veto on judges, with no sign of a resolution before the next judge steps down in September.

 

This is how Pascal Lamy, former World Trade Organization Director-General, sees the possible outcomes :

 

“If a major power does not want to play by the rules of internationally disciplined trade, the others will have to react,” Lamy said.

“Plan A” for WTO members, the preferred option, would be to ask what the problem was and offer to fix it,” he said.

Plan B would be to “make sure the system can work without them,” Lamy said, adding: “The rumor that there might be a plan B might help make sure plan A could work better.”

Lamy said the U.S. tactics were likely to lead to one of three outcomes. The mildest was reform of the WTO’s case law to meet Washington’s concerns. The middle path led back to the pre-WTO era of weaker trade disciplines and less enforcement.

“The third possible scenario is what I call the ‘lonesome cowboy’, which is either the U.S. quits or the others, in order to resist this U.S. offensive, build a WTO minus the U.S.”

 

I think  Trump is unable to work in a multilateral organization and will try to undermine all the international organizations or exit them. For him there are only winners and looser. Building collective compromises is something he does not understand.