Question

Why do you think President Trump prefers bilateral trade deals to a rule-based multilateral trade system such as WTO?

Answer 1

Answer: President Trump have personal embrace for bilateral trade deals as compared to rule based multilateral trade system such as WTO.

Negotiating new and better trade deals was one of his presidential election promise and hence we can see there is following of "Aggressive trade policy" during his time.

Example can be seens in form of Exit of America from Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), Revamping NAFTA, Exit from Paris climate deal of 2015.

1.According to him bilateral trade deals are better than regional or multilateral agreements as in multilateral trade deals US loose much than it gains.Country faced "trade deficit" with countries in such deals like NAFTA, US-KOREA FTA etc.

2.Another reason is Bilateral trade deal offers more negotiating dymanism power to US.

3.He regareded global economy as zero sum conflict which means more important question in assessing any trade deal is not whether it provides overall economic gains rather how its benefits are distributed among countries i.e. who’s getting the biggest slice of the pie.

According to him In various multilateral deals U.S. negotiators allowed other countries to gain at US's expense.

In overall he assumed that bilateral trade deal are more favourable to US and multilateral deals under WTO needs reforms in its approach.

Hope it helps.