WTO as post cold war global regulatory body can expect no help from protectionist policy outcomes.

However, UK and USA do contribute together ~15% of the budget:

https://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/secre_e/budget_e/budget2018_member_contribution_e.pdf

Stephen, it seems that the issues facing WTO now requires a plan B that allows them to exist outside BREXIT and USEXIT forces, creating in fact a clash between world rule of law and authoritarionism/exitsm, but I do not see a plan B as normal liberal democracies in WTO are taking BREXIT and USEXIT as normal liberal democracies when they are not.....extreme democratic outcomes see normal liberal democratic institutions, locally and internationally, as barriers to their existence and expansion as Trumpconomics theory suggest....

Have a nice day Stephen!

Lucio Muñoz Yes. National protectionists are very strong and contribute to WTO budget; intelligent institutional and prudent leadership is required to save the WTO idea and practice.

Could I suggest that you rephrase your question and remark as "multi-lateral agreements where many countries (if not all) agree to a shared model/rules is incompatible with separatist views". Separatist views are those insisting on "we are different" often leading to shortcuts like "and we are better than you", which is not a healthy start of discussion with another party.

For the USA, it has come and gone several times in history. Look at the Monroe doctrine, managing "America as an island" in isolation (see wikipedia article). The creation of the USA was a separation from the United Kingdom, with the military help of France. Then prior to the current era, the USA has grown at each world war, helping Europe, in particular, and became the major multilateral player we have known. This seems to be changing. It might change again...

For the UK, there is a paradox: shaking the outside link (Europe - UK) the inside links (Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Gibraltar, with England) seem to have been shaken instead of the intended reinforcement. The intent to sharpen the external identity seems to have opened a Pandora box of fragmented internal identities. But there is still rugby and football...

Is there any scholar more expert than I am, able to explain this phenomenon, and assess the internal stability of the Union of Kingdoms versus the possibility to cut the link to Europe?

Dear Renaud, the traditional model of democracy based on majority rule allows for minority/separatist views to exist, but the true mayority view wins and maintains normal democratic institutions,......keeping in check minority/separtist views through majority rule granted protections and rights and previlages.....

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When the traditional model is flipped....as in happened in BREXIT and USEXIT 2016 to extreme model of democracy based on majority rule then,,,,It must turned against the normal model and instititutions as they become impediments to the minority/separatist/extreme view....openning up local and global pandora boxes, including the one you describe assoiated to the BREXIT...

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You may find some good for thoughts that apply to the BREXIT experience in the following article I shared here with positive intentions:

The 2016 shift from normal liberal democracy to extreme liberal democracy in the USA: Pointing out the structure of Trumpconomics, its meaning, and its expected local and global implications, both analytically and graphically

Article The 2016 shift from normal liberal democracy to extreme libe...

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Thank you for commenting and have a nice day!

160 countries are WTO member, 20 want to join. They are big and small, and a mixed bag re their governance, democracy to non-democracy.

If anything, size of trade of a country matters for the power it wields in WTO, and its financial contribution, rather than their domestic political landscape.

I don't think that the UK intends to be outside of WTO. Even the US, under normal circumstances, would want to be a member.

Now the US abuses its power to bully the WTO which either will turn to 'normal' in 2020, or at a later date. But WTO will survive the US's free-rider conduct. In the meantime I think that international organisations such as the EU without outsize members as the US are better off than they would be with them (as in NATO).

Good day Jaap, thank you for your comment....The key is free markets/free trade and WTO....dominant old normal liberal democracies and WTO....M = NLD(WTO)....that was the world before 2016...

Then BREXIT and USEXIT came in 2016, not normal liberal democracies/ democratic outcomes, but dominant extreme liberal democracies/democratic outcomes(ELD), which by need and nature are or should be expected to be anti free market/free trade....

Now the WTO is like a sandwich at the centre of what should be seen as a war of survival for normal liberal democracy supporting institutions

M1 = NLD(WTO)ELD

For NLD the WTO is a supporter, for ELD the WTO is a barrier,,,,So NLD will try to save WTO as it is, ELD will try to weaken it or get rid of it.....

My question was inspired by reading NLD WTO countries like Canada asking for ELD/USEXIT help to save the WTO, to save what ELD, if allow, would be happy to see gone.....remember under trumpconomics losers are winners.....

In my humble opinion, if BREXIT and USEXIT persist/win the majority rule based democratic contest again, you should expect a) good news, they will leave the WTO; and b) bad news, if they use their dominant component status, they will work to get rid of the WTO as we know it.....

This could happen because normal democratic forces locally and internationally still are trying to deal with BREXIT and USEXIT as if they were normal democratic outcomes....

Jaap, you may find some good food for thoughts in the following article:

Moral and Amoral Liberal Democracies: How Targeted Chaos Can Affect the Democratic Process?

Data Moral and Amoral Liberal Democracies: How Targeted Chaos Can...

Have a nice day!

Same day NYT wrote this. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/28/opinion/seattle-world-trade-organization.html. I don't see why the > 160 members would let die. But organisations such as WTO need to find a way to organise themselves in a way in which the size of trade of a country isn't as unsustainable a factor in the organisation's functioning and longevity.

Jaap, I wrote the question with the whole intention to point out that WTO members need plan B to keep the WTO as free market/free trade promoter even if they have to go alone without BREXIT and USEXIT and other possible EXIT movements to come. The current plan of expecting BREXIT and USEXIT to be helpers may lead to the death of WTO as they will not be ready when what should be the expected push from extreme democratic outcomes/leaders comes....

Have a nice day!

Fascinating discussion!

Hi Lucio, Not sure whether you have access to the inner workings of WTO, but its management should have discussed for a long time already what the potential exit of a large member would imply, and how to address such an issue. In some way regional economic unions do in their jurisdictions what WTO does on a larger scale. I can't see why it would not be in the interest of the large majority of members to keep WTO going. I would not be surprised if many members would like to see the behind of the US. For the UK, they will trade under WTO rules if there's not agreement with the EU. If they would not, as the US apparently seems to contemplate, then, as I understand it, they would need to have trade agreements with every country they trade with, which would take so long that the pick-forks would come out, and the UK government would be send home, if not be decapitated, person by person.

Jaab, regardless of the structure of international organizations or the structure/constitution of normal liberal democracies, they are barrier to the extreme majority rule based democratic outcome....And this fact becomes more worrison to NLD when dominant extreme democratic outcomes take place....

BREXIT and USEXIT came out of nowhere in 2016 as traditional democracy scholars apparently failed to contemplate the possibility of majority rule based democratic contest leading to a minority view win....

As to see the coming of EDO you have to flip normal democratic thinking into extreme democratic thinking, which I have done....

The paradigm shift knowledge gap created when going from normal liberal democracy to extreme liberal democracy is still helping today the EDO giving it an upper hand each time they push local and/or global normal democratic institutions,,,,

You should know or expect that to persist both BREXIT and USEXIT will take action that under normal democratic thinking is irrational, but under extreme democratic thinking is rational....losers from trade wars are winners according to trumpconomics as it is the case in the USA and in the UK, what matters for the EDO is to persist and if possible expand, most likely, outwards....

Sadly social or economic pain have no meaning under amoral liberal democracies...

Have a nice day Jaab!

Dear Lucio, My name is Jaap. I think that neither in the case of Brexit nor in what you have labeled 'USEXIT' (I have assumed exit from WTO, but I think you implicitly refer to the US 2016 election as well) the vote was not in favour of a majority. You may have a quibble re the fallibility of either system; I do too. But to the best of my knowledge there is a search for better, though without much conclusive and convincing results . Eg, citizen assemblies, and new forms of decision-making (Taiwan, Pol.is). I'm not sure what your acronyms 'EDO' and 'NLD' mean; NLD may mean The Netherlands, and, fyi, it recently decided to no longer use referenda, as they have downsides eg re the voice of minorities. I'm not a political scientist so would want to leave it with this. Thanks for an interesting exchange, Lucio.

My apologies Jaap, I wrote my reply in a hurry and did not notice the mistake.

My apologies too for assuming you read the material I shared and were familiar now with that terminology NLD = Normal liberal democracy, NDO = Normal democratic outcome, ELD = Extreme liberal democracy, EDO = Extreme democratic outcome, Trumpconomics = economics under targeted chaos....

Without reading it is understandable that you were not familiar with the terminology I used to share my outside the box ideas about normal and extreme liberal democracies, moral and amoral expectations, and the nature of trumpconomics and how this relates to current WTO issues.

Lets leave it here Jaap, thank you for commenting..

Respectfully yours;

Lucio