Facing up to Trump administration mercantilism: The 2018 WTO trade policy review of the United States

• Date: 01 December 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/twec.12875
• Author: Douglas R. Nelson
• Published date: 01 December 2019

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wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/twec World Econ. 2019;42:3430–3437.

© 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

DOI: 10.1111/twec.12875

SPECIAL ISSUE ARTICLE

Facing up to Trump administration mercantilism:

The 2018 WTO trade policy review of the United

States

Douglas R.Nelson

Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, USA

Email: dnelson@tulane.edu

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INTRODUCTION

As one of the four largest trading economies in the WTO system, under the rules established in annex

3 of the WTO agreement, US trade policy is reviewed every 2years (to be every 3 years from 1

January 2019 under a 2017 amendment to annex 3). Thus, the 2018 Trade Policy Review (TPR) of the

United States is the 14th such review.1 As the first review of the trade policy of the Trump administra-

tion, this would seem to have particular significance. This paper briefly reviews what is in the TPR

and then turn to what is not in the report.

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WHAT IS IN THE 2018 TPR OF THE UNITED STATES

The thrust of trade policy changed during the review period. The president's 2018 Trade

Policy Agenda is driven to achieve “free, fair, and reciprocal” trade relations, considered

critical to the U.S. national security policy. It also focuses on renegotiating and revising

trade deals.

(p. 11)

For an up‐to‐date overview of the structure of US trade policy and the institutions involved in the mak-

ing and implementation of that policy, one could do much worse than the WTO's TPR. After a brief re-

view of the economic (chapter 1) and institutional (chapter 2) environments, the report provides a detailed

presentation of both trade policy measures and policy actions that might have trade policy implications

1 The World Economy has evaluated these reviews on three previous occasions (Stern, 1998; Prusa, 2005; Ludema, 2007).

Thanks to Bernard Hoekman and Petros Mavroidis for many helpful comments. Sadly, neither can be blamed for failures of

fact, logic or judgement that remain (even where I have tried to take their comments into account). This paper was written

while visiting the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the EUI and benefitted from activities supported by the

European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 770680.