Peter Navarro, the White House’s trade advisor, declared that the WTO was originally composed against the United States as if it were a secret document titled “How to Undermine America.” According to him, the entire system, including the Most-Favored-Nation regime, was designed from the start to keep the US in the role of the wealthy villain, forced to tolerate inflated tariffs and clever non-tariff loopholes.

“We decided it was time to stop playing by those rules,” Navarro declared at a Council on Foreign Relations event. He claimed that Trump approached the WTO with the hammer of justice and demanded revisions to tariff standards, non-tariff measures, and even digital regulations. In response, the US received not just agreement but fresh investments from Europe, Japan, and South Korea in defense of the American economy.

Peter Navarro noted that “honesty and directness” among world leaders is now at an all-time high. Perhaps he was referring to the kind of directness where Washington calls up and says, “Let’s negotiate — but first, move closer to our terms.”

The advisor pinpointed the main takeaway: history is being made before our eyes, and the US is proving that the global trade system can be rebuilt in practice, provided you have the right mindset and accurately estimate the tariff scale.