New Delhi, May 15 -- It's the season for trade negotiations and deals, going by the pace and number of deals struck over the last fortnight alone. After the India-UK trade deal that was announced on 6 May, we had the US-UK pact and then an interim one between China and America. With a little luck, we are likely to see India's deals under discussion with the US and EU reach fruition as well.

To be sure, the finer details of these accords are not yet known. But to the extent that they could cushion the impact of the trade war unleashed by US President Donald Trump, they count as good news. The flip side, however, is that they could sound a death-knell for the rules-based system of multilateral trade we have known since the World Trade Orga...