WTO wants reform to security exemption used to justify tariffs

WTO wants reform to security exemption used to justify tariffs WTO wants reform to security exemption used to justify tariffs

TOKYO — The head of the World Trade Organization has called on member states to negotiate “a more careful definition” of the national security exemption, a provision used by U.S. President Donald Trump to justify a flurry of tariff threats.

Member states are entitled to use the national security exemption, a Cold War-era clause that allows countries to take otherwise WTO-inconsistent actions, under the organization’s rules. However they “need to determine what constitutes, really, a national security exception,” WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told Nikkei Asia.