TRUMP, on a World Trade Organization ruling allowing the U.S. to impose tariffs on $7.5 billion worth of European imports annually: "You never had wins with other presidents, did you? But we're having a lot of wins at the WTO since I became president." — news conference Wednesday.
THE FACTS: Trump is wrong that the U.S. never got any WTO victories under other presidents.
The U.S. has always had a high success rate when it pursues cases against other countries at the WTO. In 2017, trade analyst Daniel Ikenson of the libertarian Cato Institute found that the U.S. had won 91% of the time it brought a complaint that ended up being adjudicated by the Geneva-based trade monitor. True, Ikenson noted, the countries bringing complaints tend to win overwhelmingly. That's because they don't bother going to the WTO in the first place if they don't have a pretty strong case.
The WTO announcement culminated a 15-year fight over EU subsidies for Airbus — a fight that began long before Trump was in office.
THE FACTS: Trump is wrong that the U.S. never got any WTO victories under other presidents.
The U.S. has always had a high success rate when it pursues cases against other countries at the WTO. In 2017, trade analyst Daniel Ikenson of the libertarian Cato Institute found that the U.S. had won 91% of the time it brought a complaint that ended up being adjudicated by the Geneva-based trade monitor. True, Ikenson noted, the countries bringing complaints tend to win overwhelmingly. That's because they don't bother going to the WTO in the first place if they don't have a pretty strong case.
The WTO announcement culminated a 15-year fight over EU subsidies for Airbus — a fight that began long before Trump was in office.
