When China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, it was still a developing country. More than 15 years later, its circumstances have changed and it has turned into the world’s second-largest economy.
The WTO has served not to discipline China, which is what Trump (and to some extent the EU, albeit more discreetly) now seeks, but rather to give it global thrust. Trump wants to stop
China overtaking the United States technologically. Underlying the trade war unleashed by the current U.S. President, there is a clash of perceptions.