This is from an article by Chris Horseman of Borderlex on the progress (or lack thereof) on WTO dispute settlement reform:
“No US trade representative is going to go before Congress and say, ‘I’ve agreed to binding dispute settlement between China and the US’. It is simply not politically possible,” the source said.
Believe me, I am fully aware of how people in Congress see the geopolitical situation with China these days, and I agree that anything related to China is extremely sensitive. However, on the specific issue of trade dispute settlement, I wouldn't rule out that there is a way forward here.
In my view, what some current or future U.S. Trade Representative needs to do is go to Congress and say something along these lines:
"We need an effective way to enforce trade rules against China in order to rein in its non-market practices and protectionist trade barriers. It should be clear at this point, after watching how the Trump administration's efforts played out, that unilateral actions don't work very well here.
The most effective approach so far has been WTO dispute settlement. That process isn't functioning very well right now because of the U.S. blocking of appointments to the Appellate Body, and we need to get this issue resolved so that it works again.
For those concerned about Chinese complaints against U.S. measures and practices, WTO dispute settlement is flexible enough that we don't have to comply in sensitive cases (e.g., we can accept retaliation instead of complying). Of course, if we don't comply, China won't either, so that has to be taken into account in any decision on whether we are going to comply."
Each of those points can be further fleshed out, but that's the basic outline. How would the key members of Congress who need to be persuaded on this issue react? Hard to say, but I'd like to see someone give it a try!
