US’s Overdue WTO Funding Caught in Broader Trump Budget Review
(Bloomberg) — Overdue US funding for the World Trade Organization is under a Trump administration review, adding strains on an institution whose mission of lower trade barriers is threatened by the US president’s planned launch of so-called reciprocal tariffs.
A State Department this week spokesperson confirmed the WTO is included in a broader formal funding review by Trump into US support for international organizations.
WTO spokesperson Ismaila Dieng on Thursday separately confirmed that the US is currently in “Category 1” arrears — the first step on a three-tier ranking of late payers. That group includes Angola, Haiti, Uganda and five others whose contributions are late by at least a year but less than two.
The fact that the US falls into that grouping indicates that the arrears originated in the Biden administration.
According to the WTO’s latest annual report, the US contributed $26.3 million to the organization’s $230 million budget last year, making the US the largest single contributor, just ahead of China.
A Feb. 4 statement from the White House indicated that the US is ending funding to some United Nations agencies and reviewing support for all international organizations, though the WTO wasn’t specifically mentioned.
Trump hasn’t publicly chastised the WTO during his first two months in office, though his nominee to be deputy US Trade Representative stationed in Geneva was Joseph Barloon. He’s a former adviser to the USTR to Robert Lighthizer, a longtime critic of the WTO.
The Trump administration’s aggressive use of tariffs to try and address the US’s global trade imbalances sits at odds with WTO’s mission to reduce trade barriers and litigate disputes. Trump has called the April 2 launch of “reciprocal” tariffs “Liberation Day.”
During Trump’s first administration, the WTO’s appellate body ceased to function because the US government blocked appointments to the seven-person panel. That paralysis continued through the Biden administration.
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