WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer on Thursday said the world needed either a multilateral system to govern global trade or a series of bilateral agreements, but it did not make sense to have both underway at the same time.
“We should have a multilateral system or a bunch of bilateral systems,” Lighthizer told an online event hosted by the London-based Chatham House think tank.
“To be honest, I can go either way. But we can’t have people who … profess to multilateralism and then go around basically being the biggest proponents of a bilateral system.”
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal and David Lawder; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
