Back in January, the WTO ruled against the US in an intellectual property dispute with China. Well, to be specific, there were three issues being discussed, and on the two important ones, the US lost. On the final, not particularly important one, the US won. But, as it has done before, the US took that and declared victory, leading to all sorts of headlines claiming that the US had “won” a trade dispute with China. So, when similar headlines showed up, again with the US claiming victory, it seemed worth exploring in more detail. You can read the full WTO report, where you’ll see how highly technical this specific argument was, and note that, indeed, the WTO basically upheld the earlier rulings, with minor (mostly meaningless) exception.
So, the US does get to declare “victory” on this particular issue, but it’s unlikely that China really cares. Also, it’s more than a bit ironic that the US suddenly acts like a WTO ruling like this is meaningful. It’s also striking to hear US Trade Rep Ron Kirk claim that “We expect China to respond promptly to these findings and bring its measures into compliance,” when the US itself continues to ignore similar WTO rulings against the US when it comes to online gambling in Antigua. For the US to act like the WTO rulings mean something, shouldn’t it need to live up to those rulings when it loses as well?
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