Expert: US cannot ignore WTO rules in tariffs dispute

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The US cannot ignore WTO rules in the face of its tariffs dispute with trading partners including China and Europe, according to Jeffrey Sachs, a renowned American economist and special adviser to the UN Secretary-General.

“We have global rules, and we spent a long time negotiating them. The US cannot act unilaterally against those rules,” said Sachs.

The WTO is at the heart of the system of rules for international trade. It is the forum for sorting disputes about global trade rules between countries. But US President Donald Trump does not much like it.

Trump’s skepticism about international trade agreements has been a persistent theme of his politics, as candidate and now as president.

But Sachs said that governments should insist on WTO rules. “The response should be' we have rules, and we should use them'," he said.

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And instead of the tariffs and threats, Sachs also has some prescriptions for the US economy, especially the domestic income gap.

"The US economy in the whole has done quite well, but the income gap between rich and poor is wide,” Sachs said.

The professor added that the gap is a domestic challenge. He suggested that the US should be redistributing income more fairly through budget and tax policies, rather than blaming other countries.

“Trump is blaming the rest of the world for that. But these are internal US problems,” said Sachs, “and our politics need to improve inside because global trade is beneficial around the world. But it does have effects on income distribution which every country needs to handle internally.”