Weaponizing International Trade in Political Disputes: Issues Under International Economic Law and Systemic Risks

In recent years, the world’s largest economies and traders – the United States, China, and Japan – have chosen to use measures affecting international trade as a means to achieve political objectives in contravention of the rules of international economic law and the practices of international trade established over several decades. Since the end of World War II, the world economy and international trade have rapidly expanded and prospered by achieving a degree of separation between international trade and political struggles under the rule-based international trading system, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and its successor, the World Trade Organization. Thus, the recent misuses of trade measures by the world’s largest traders are alarming, because they undermine the stability of the world trading system, which has been maintained for the past several decades. This article accounts politically-motivated trade measures (‘PTMs’) recently invoked by the United States, China, and Japan, assesses their incompatibilities with the rules of international economic law, and also examines the risks that these PTMs pose to the world trading system. Weaponizing Trade, The World Trade Organization, PTM, Section 301, National Security