India, Jan. 20 -- Washington's blinkered view of international trade

Prabhash Ranjan

The United States (US), as part of the ongoing discussions on World Trade Organisation (WTO) reforms, has made a startling proposal that strikes at the core of the eight-decade-old multilateral trading order. Prima facie, the US engagement with the WTO is welcome, given that, in recent years, it had almost abandoned the organisation. The US believes that global trade should move away from the most favoured nation (MFN) principle, which has been the cornerstone of the multilateral trading system, codified in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) from 1948 to 1994 and subsequently in the WTO. The core reason for the US to make this argument is...