The United States, China and the WTO after Coronavirus

Abstract

A hegemon can destroy its international regimes, but what happens when it does not possess the capacity to reconstitute a regime to its liking? Drawing on structural power theory, our paper examines President Nixon’s historic attacks on the Bretton Woods international monetary regime to help illuminate President Trump’s attacks on the World Trade Organisation. In both cases regime destruction was driven to a large extent by a desire to contain rivals: Europe for Nixon, China for Trump. Drawing on original archival material, our case study analysis shows that whilst the US possessed sufficient negative structural power to derail Bretton Woods, it lacked sufficient positive structural power to create the new monetary structure Nixon wanted. Trump faces a similar dilemma: he can block the WTO regime, but cannot necessarily replace it with one to the US’s liking. China is too powerful and possesses too much structural power of its own to give up its WTO privileges without a fight. After the Coronavirus pandemic, it is unlikely that China can prevent the US from wrecking the WTO trade regime, but very likely it can block US attempts to create a successor regime tailored exclusively to US requirements.