James Bacchus on how a trade policy should look like is found in this detailed CATO piece.
Modernising the WTO is one of its key points:
Since the conclusion of the WTO treaty, much has happened to transform world trade and the world economy. Although the WTO rules were written in the 20th century, most are still fit for the 21st century. But no small number of trade rules need updating and, in many aspects of contemporary commerce, new rules are very much needed. Democrats should support the negotiation of new and better WTO rules on digital trade, services trade, and intellectual property, all of which are areas of vast importance to American workers and businesses. New rules are needed to facilitate investment and to ensure free and fair competition. Better disciplines are required for trade‐distorting subsidies, including new rules forbidding the favoring by WTO members of their state‐owned enterprises. New rules also are needed to provide protections against forced transfers of technology, while encouraging the lawful spread to poorer developing countries of the new technologies they urgently need to confront environmental, health, and other global challenges. Rules are also needed to address product standards, technical regulations, and the proliferation of other non‐tariff barriers that are increasingly substituted for tariffs and that pose protectionist obstacles to trade.
New norm setting is a goal that is frequently put forth when people speak about the WTO being reformed. 21st reform for 21st century issues.
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