Strategic Reglobalization: How Great Power Rivalry is Impacting the Multilateral Trading System

Among economists and historians, there is virtual consensus that the General Agreement on Tariffs and TradeGeneral Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, The and the World Trade Organization contributed significantly to the superlative global economic growth experienced over the past 75 years. What is less frequently considered is that the inception and evolution of the multilateral trading system were made possible because those developments were widely perceived among the US political establishment as serving the foreign policy and national security interests of the United StatesUnited States. In challenging US preeminence, the rise of China—which was vastly accelerated by the WTO benefits afforded its economy—has significantly eroded that once bedrock belief in WashingtonWashington that the rules-based trading system enhances US security and is worth preserving. Indeed, national security and other strategic considerations are causing both WashingtonWashington and BeijingBeijing to deprioritize commitments to non-discriminatory trade policy, which threatens the very foundations of the trading system.