An abandoned Trump Bill would abandon key WTO rules: Axios

A leak of a Trump administration bill shows that the United States would abandon the fundamental rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO), according to Axios, which got the copy of the bill. The Law Would Have Provided President Trump Donald John TrumpScaramucci Warns Trump Must "Change Tactics Now" on Trade Trump Has Strived to Buy Historic Scottish Building for Hotel: Republican Report Wins Right to Replace Farenthold in Congress MORE with the authority to ignore two monumental principles of the WTO and to take part in bilateral negotiations with any country.

According to Axios, the legislation shows the abandonment of the "most favored nation" (MFN) principle, according to which countries are not allowed to set different duty rates for different countries outside the United States. free trade agreements.

The bill also removes "bound tariff rates", which are tariff limits that each WTO member country has accepted, Axios said.

The president was briefed on the bill in May, according to Axios.

However, the officials who drafted the bill are skeptical of its approval, White House commercial advisor Peter Navarro, having told White House legislative director Marc Short that he was not going to He had no chance of passing Congress. Lindsay Walters, spokeswoman for the White House, told Axios that Trump had asked his team to develop a plan to address tariff imbalances, but cautioned that the administration did not provide for legislative rollout .

"It is no secret that POTUS was frustrated by the unfair imbalance of tariffs that was disadvantageous to the United States and asked its team to develop ideas to remedy this situation and encourage countries to The current system gives no advantage to the United States and no other country encourages them, "said Walters.

" The only way this would be a new one, is that this legislation that the administration was preparing to deploy, but that is not the case, "she said." The directors did not even meet to reciprocal trade legislation. "

Axios announced for the first time Friday that Trump had spoken to his advisers of a possible US exit from the international organization.

Trump took a series of aggressive measures on the international trade front in court

The President announced in March that he would impose a 25% tariff on steel imports and a 10% tariff on imports from the United States. aluminum and threatened last week to impose a 20% duty. at the beginning of this month, it would impose duties on Chinese goods worth $ 50 billion.

China has appealed tariffs on steel and aluminum to the WTO