ITIF urges Trump to force China to live up to WTO commitments

America’s leading science and tech policy think tank, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation – or ITIF – has released a statement regarding Sunday’s 15th anniversary of China joining the World Trade Organization. ITIF claims that China is still not living up to its WTO commitments, and urges President-elect Donald Trump to force the issue.

The statement, from ITIF President Robert D. Atkinson, is as follows:

“Trade with China has been one step forward, two steps back for 15 years. Each time China claims to move toward opening up trade, it turns around and introduces another new mercantilist trade barrier to counteract it. The WTO enforcement system has been ineffective at stopping it. In 2001, the pundits were nearly unanimous in saying that joining the WTO could change China as it bought into the same rules of the game for market-based trade that everyone else plays by.

“Now we know that what China really bought from Geneva was a ‘get out of jail free’ card. President-elect Trump’s pledge to get tougher on China’s mercantilism should be a top priority in January to turn China’s false promises into real ones.”

To learn more, read ITIF’s September 2015 report False Promises: The Yawning Gap Between China’s WTO Commitments and Practices.

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