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Begin New Search Author James Bacchus Publication Year within 5 Years

1. What Happens If the United States Leaves the WTO?

Author:
James Bacchus
Publication Date:
06-2026
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Aresolution before Congress calls for US withdrawal from the World Trade Organization (WTO). Both international law and US law permit withdrawal. The case for withdrawal, however, is misguided and misinformed. Much of what is said and widely believed about the effects of WTO membership on the United States is simply untrue. In fact, American membership in the WTO has been for decades and remains today enormously beneficial economically to US businesses, workers, and consumers. Withdrawal by the United States from the WTO would result in the loss of many of these economic benefits, including those derived from decades of accumulated trade commitments made by the 165 other member countries on thousands of different US goods and services traded within the WTO legal framework; those resulting from the commercial shield of WTO rules forbidding trade discrimination against US exports; and those emanating from the availability to the United States of an impartial, binding, and enforceable system of WTO trade dispute settlement. Moreover, withdrawal by the United States would cede US leadership in the WTO to other leading trading countries, including the second-largest trading country in the world, China. Trade is a win-win economically for all WTO members. WTO membership maximizes the overall economic gains from engaging in trade. The United States should remain in the WTO and help lead it toward needed reforms that will make it more beneficial to all in the modern global economy of the 21st century.
Topic:
Economics, Geopolitics, Trade, and WTO
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

2. The Future of the WTO: Multilateral or Plurilateral?

Author:
James Bacchus
Publication Date:
05-2023
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Since its 1947 inception as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the World Trade Organization (WTO) has generally practiced an all‐​or‐​nothing approach to multilateral negotiations in which the consensus of all WTO members was for trade liberalization. Although this approach worked throughout the second half of the 20th century, its shortcomings were laid bare by the failure of the Doha Development Agenda and the inability of WTO members to achieve further broad, multilateral trade liberalization. Today, amid heightened animosity toward additional trade liberalization, prospects for the traditional consensus‐​based approach seem dimmer than ever.
Topic:
Treaties and Agreements, World Trade Organization, Multilateralism, and Trade
Political Geography:
Global Focus

3. The Black Hole of National Security: Striking the Right Balance for the National Security Exception in International Trade

Author:
James Bacchus
Publication Date:
11-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Article XXI of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) reserves for members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) the legal authority to restrict trade in goods to protect members’ “essential” security interests. Similar exceptions to WTO trade obligations exist in other WTO agreements. For more than seven decades, WTO members exercised self‐​restraint in invoking these exceptions, doing so only for narrow purposes and in truly exceptional circumstances to avoid pushing the boundaries of the law too far and thereby upending the delicate balance between members’ legitimate pursuit of their security interests and their obligations to reduce barriers to trade. Yet, trade restrictions justified on national security grounds have proliferated in recent years and are increasingly subject to litigation in WTO dispute settlement. As a result, the national security provisions contained within the WTO agreements, as well as fundamental questions about the nexus between trade and national security, are set to be tested and clarified by WTO jurists—a less than ideal outcome that could lead to the further undermining of WTO dispute settlement and the rules‐​based international trading system more broadly. This paper explains the origins of the national security exceptions in the GATT and the WTO agreements and the history of their invocation, summarizes recent litigation that has clarified these exceptions, discusses current developments and upcoming litigation that could prove pivotal to our understanding of the trade‐​security nexus and the future of the world trading system, and offers some concluding thoughts on the options available to WTO members for striking a balance between trade liberalization and the defense of national security.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance, National Security, World Trade Organization, and Tariffs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4. Biden and Trade at Year One: The Reign of Polite Protectionism

Author:
James Bacchus
Publication Date:
04-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
As a presidential candidate, Joe Biden promised a change from the go‐​it‐​alone, my‐​way‐​or‐​the‐​highway approach to trade policy of Donald Trump. Disappointingly, during the first year of his presidency, Biden has instead largely embraced the failed Trump policy of unilateralism and protectionism in trade. He and his administration have done so politely, without Trump’s bluster and bombast. Yet, the results have been mostly the same: a turn toward more trade protection and managed trade, toward a proposed industrial policy that would add more restrictions on trade, and toward a destructive unilateralism that threatens to continue undermining the multilateral trading system overseen by the World Trade Organization. If Biden continues to pursue this misguided trade policy, American recovery and prosperity are at risk. There is still time—at least three years—for him to end this reign of polite protectionism by framing and pursuing a new trade policy that will benefit all Americans: a policy that will achieve more trade liberalization, stop managed trade, halt trade‐​restrictive industrial policy, renew trade multilateralism, and give restored and unflinching support to the international rule of law in trade.
Topic:
Tariffs, Trade, Donald Trump, Protectionism, and Joe Biden
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

5. TRIPS-Past to TRIPS-Plus: Upholding the Balance between Exclusivity and Access

Author:
James Bacchus
Publication Date:
06-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI)
Abstract:
A deadly global pandemic and other unique circumstances have combined to present the World Trade Organization (WTO) with an opportunity to modernize its rules for the trade-related aspects of intellectual property (IP) rights. The best place to begin is with a full realization of the negotiated balance between exclusivity and access in the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement). There is the need to turn the “TRIPS-past” of WTO IP rules agreed in 1995 into the “TRIPS-plus” of improved rules more fit to purpose for the twenty-first century. New rules are needed to help spark new innovations of all kinds and the rapid spread of those innovations worldwide, including rules relating to intangible assets and especially to digital expressions of IP. Continuing questions over the extent to which the TRIPS Agreement protects the exclusivity of IP rights in COVID-19 vaccines underscore how much uncertainty remains about where the line of this balance is in this multilateral trade agreement, and also how much doubt still exists about whether that line is in the right place.
Topic:
International Cooperation, International Trade and Finance, Intellectual Property/Copyright, Multilateralism, Pandemic, COVID-19, and WTO
Political Geography:
Global Focus

6. The Digital Decide: How to Agree on WTO Rules for Digital Trade

Author:
James Bacchus
Publication Date:
08-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI)
Abstract:
After more than 20 years of unsuccessful negotiations, WTO member countries may be able to agree on global digital trade rules if they look to the new Digital Economy Partnership Agreement (DEPA) among Chile, New Zealand and Singapore as a model. As the first “digital only” trade agreement, the DEPA offers a modular approach that allows members to pick and choose which modules work best for them today while enabling them to adopt more legal commitments on digital trade in the future. As cross-border trade becomes increasingly digital, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, ensuring the free movement of goods and services is essential to the global economy.
Topic:
International Cooperation, International Trade and Finance, World Trade Organization, and Digital Economy
Political Geography:
Global Focus

7. Trade Is Good for Your Health

Author:
James Bacchus
Publication Date:
06-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
There is increasing need to free up medical trade to help end the COVID-19 pandemic and secure global health. Yet import tariffs, export restrictions, and other limitations on international trade in medicines and medical goods continue to confound the hopes for fulfilling this need. Indeed, added restrictions have been imposed on medical trade during the pandemic. Meanwhile, governments have accomplished little at the World Trade Organization (WTO) to help meet this need. Using trade to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic and to otherwise support global health must move to the top of the WTO agenda, with the aim of finalizing new rules to support trading for health care goods by the time of the next WTO ministerial conference in Geneva in late November 2021 — and ideally, sooner.
Topic:
Health, Trade, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Global Focus