Adjunct Professor Matt Gold was quoted in a CNN article about current U.S.-China trade relations.
Many of Trump’s criticisms of China tally with those of other governments and complaints from international companies. But rather than build a broad coalition Trump decided to go after China alone without following WTO procedures, abandoning the legal high ground.
“Though China’s been extensively violating its WTO obligations to the United States for 16 years, Trump managed to grant China legal equivalence in a matter of days by imposing US national security tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum outside WTO rules, and by threatening to impose retaliatory tariffs outside the WTO retaliation process in response to some of China’s violations,” said Matt Gold, an international trade expert at Fordham University School of Law.
Those moves “have undermined the entire system,” Gold added.