Law360 Quotes Stephen Kho on Biden Approach to WTO

Akin Gump international trade partner Stephen Kho has been quoted in the Law360 article “WTO Reform Unlikely To Take Back Seat If Biden Is Elected.” The article reports that a potential Biden administration would likely take a very different approach toward the World Trade Organization (WTO) than the Trump administration has during the past four years.

According to Law360, while President Trump has taken steps to block new appointments to the WTO Appellate Body, leading some to think he may not be interested in its long-term survival, it does not appear that former Vice President Joe Biden would adopt the same “mistrust of international institutions.” In fact, the article says, China’s trade policies could provide more of an impetus to ultimately fix the problems with the WTO.

Kho said that would presumably be part of Biden’s strategy, telling Law360, “the Biden folks have come out and said that they do view the WTO as an important entity that needs to be maintained.”

On the other hand, Kho said, with the Trump administration, “it’s a lot of stalling, and it’s an attempt to bleed the entity from the inside, and to basically stop all efforts for any sort of movement forward.” He added, “This notion of ‘you tell us what’s wrong and we’ll tell you whether you’re right or not’ — that will likely not be the way the Biden administration deals with this. I’m hopeful they will come up with solutions that can be discussed and ways forward to really resolve the problems.”