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Jeffrey Schott

Jeffrey Schott

Economist

Jun 9, 2026

7:33
Mm.
7:33
Because you said the WTO isn't what it was meant to be.
7:37
Any international agreement has to be a living agreement, has to reflect the changes in the trading system, and adapt to new challenges that come up from different policies that are used.
7:51
And so the problem with the WTO system was the weakness in the adaptation and the, some of the cumbersome elements of dispute settlement that impeded the expeditious resolution of disputes, particularly among major trading countries.
8:10
And that breeds frustration and also saps political support for engaging or investing in new initiatives to supplement the rules, because if the rules, if you spend all this effort to negotiate new rules on investment or whatever, and then the rules sit there and cannot be effectively enforced, then why did you go through the process to begin with? And so this is what has challenged the WTO system almost from the beginning, for both economic and political reasons.
8:45
And, uh, so in response, in various parts of the world, countries have gotten together with their close neighbors or, or trading partners in the region to develop rules and relationships that complement and supplement the, uh, international system in the WTO.
9:07
And there, of course, we've been doing that in North America for the past 30-odd years with the North American Free Trade Agreement, now the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

14 MINS LATER

23:34
Besides the USMCA review, which is, I guess, in less than a month, what will you be watching for in the next three to six months?

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