India should work towards a Trexit from WTO

Feb 15, 2025 | 20:39 IST

India needs this trading system so its best bet is to persuade the US to leave it and then work out a bilateral set of tariffs with it

Just as Trump pulled the US out of the WHO and Paris climate agreement, he can surely leave the WTO too. Why should other countries, accounting for 85-88% of world trade, not carry on without the US?

By declaring that the US will impose reciprocal import duties to create a “fair” trading system, US President Trump has crushed the rules of the post-World War 2 trading system, created first under General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), and later under the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

These rules provided, among other things, for ‘special and differential treatment’ (SDT) for developing countries, allowing them to maintain high tariffs even as rich countries cut theirs. The US took the lead in helping poorer countries to develop their infant industries with higher tariffs. Trump now decries that as “unfair.”

TOI

TOI

India should work towards a Trexit from WTO

Just as Trump pulled the US out of the WHO and Paris climate agreement, he can surely leave the WTO too. Why should other countries, accounting for 85-88% of world trade, not carry on without the US?

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TOI

India should work towards a Trexit from WTO

Just as Trump pulled the US out of the WHO and Paris climate agreement, he can surely leave the WTO too. Why should other countries, accounting for 85-88% of world trade, not carry on without the US?

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