Trying to discern the shape and the substance of the international trade policy of the United States of America can be almost as difficult as trying to discern the meaning of the ‘covered agreements’ of the World Trade Organization.

Both seem ever in need of clarification.

The USA is the largest trading nation in the world. No other country has a greater volume of imports and exports. Therefore, no other country has as great an interest as the USA in increasing the flow of trade, or as great an interest in ensuring the continued flow of trade by upholding the rules for trade on which it and other countries have agreed.

Yet the USA has seemed increasingly reluctant, in recent years, to do all that needs to be done to remove the remaining barriers to trade, and to uphold the international rule of law in trade.

Why is this?

Why is it that the USA, which did so much through long decades to establish the multilateral trading system under the auspices of the WTO, now seems so ambivalent about that system, and so hesitant to help provide the leadership it so much needs?

Part of the answer lies in the changed nature of the world economy as we waken to the realization that a new century has brought a new world. The USA remains the world's leading trading nation, to be sure.