Trump is blocking appointments of WTO judges. Here’s why

More of the tariff skirmishes between the U.S. and China, the EU, Mexico, Canada, and other countries are likely to end up at the World Trade Organization. That’s because the WTO is supposed to help mediate trade battles. The problem is, President Donald Trump has been working to undermine the WTO’s authority by vetoing all judicial appointments to the body’s seven-person appeals chamber, which has final say on trade fights. Trump’s stranglehold on what is essentially the supreme court of world trade threatens to tear up the rulebook that’s governed international commerce for more than two decades.

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