Author: Fahrettin Sumer

U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs and subsequent trade wars have increased the risks of recessions in many countries, including the U.S. and China. They also damage the orderly international trade system built over the past eight decades. The World Trade Organization (WTO), which serves as a forum for multilateral trade negotiations and an arbiter for trade disputes, has been sidelined, as the U.S. pursues bilateral trade negotiations with countries like Japan and the U.K. and is now negotiating with China. These trade wars and ensuing bilateral deals are replacing the WTO’s trade dispute settlement mechanism. These developments have created risks…

Since Donald Trump retook the presidency in January 2025, his administration has reignited concerns about the future of the liberal world trade system – a framework the United States has shaped and sustained for eight decades. Trump’s tariff policies on a wide range of countries, including regional partners like Canada and Mexico, have sparked fears not only for the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement’s (USMCA) free trade system but also for the broader global trade order, governed and adjudicated by the World Trade Organization (WTO). Are we on the brink of seeing this system collapse under the weight of escalating trade disputes?…