Recalibration, Shielding and Containment: How the World Trading System De-risks from China and the United States

Wolfgang Alschner

World Trade Review, 2025, vol. 24, issue 4, 498-508

Abstract: The two economic superpowers operate increasingly outside WTO norms. China's reliance on non-market practices challenges the competitive equality among WTO members, while the US, under a second Trump administration, has unilaterally raised tariffs in defiance of multilateral rules. This essay examines how the rest of the world is de-risking from the two rogue superpowers while shoring up trade multilateralism. It identifies three interlinked strategies: (1) recalibration – reducing trade dependency through targeted trade remedies against China and narrow bilateral agreements with the US; (2) shielding – collective and unilateral responses to economic coercion of both superpowers; and (3) containment – preventing illegality from spreading to the rest of the world. Together, these modes of governance not only mitigate systemic spillovers from rule-breaking but also help rebalance global trade by addressing structural imbalances in Chinese overproduction and US overconsumption. In doing so, the rest of the world may lay the groundwork for a renewed and more resilient multilateral trading system.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:wotrrv:v:24:y:2025:i:4:p:498-508_9

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in World Trade Review from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().