CR- Summary Question

Q. Dispute settlements take years to do, during which non-compliant tariffs and retaliatory action prevail. China has been gaming the system to impose tariffs that it knows will eventually be ruled out of court after a couple of years, but it gains from them in the interim. Besides, a country that files a successful trade complaint only earns the right to impose penal tariffs on the offending country. In a fast-moving scenario where retaliatory tariffs have already been imposed, dispute settlement as the WTO understands it loses meaning.

Which of the following best summarizes the paragraph given above?

A. WTO’s dispute settlement mechanism is a time-consuming process and awards ineffectual penalties.

B. WTO’s time-consuming dispute settlement system has become inconsequential in today’s dynamic environment, where retaliatory tariffs are already imposed.

C. Countries like China are taking unfair advantage of WTO’s lenient dispute settlement mechanism.

D. WTO’s dispute settlement mechanism has done nothing to ameliorate the international trade issues caused by retaliatory tariffs.

See our previous ‘Questions of the Day’ here:

Verbal Question of the Day:22

Verbal Question of the Day: 21

30 comments

  1. Mayank Khanna

    A
    It talks about the process and how it takes time to decide anything . So that way it sums up the slow process which is used by countries like China for benefit.

  2. B seems the most appropriate, as all the things mentioned in this point seems relevant according to the passage.

  3. Shivam mukherjee

    B and C are very close options, however, B is the answer.

    A. Out of context. We cannot say that they award insufficient penalties.
    C. Well, it surely summarizes the fact that China is toying around with the system, however, I believe that it’s too incomplete an answer. And( I am not very sure about this one prabhat sir, please correct me if I am wrong), just because something is time consuming, we cannot call it lenient ,can we?
    D. We cannot conclude that from the passage.

    B. Summarizes all the points.

    1. TG.Prabhat

      Well done, Shivam! B. is correct.

      Retaliatory tariffs are already in place so the the award given to the winning party in a trade complaint (right to impose penal tariffs on the offending country) can be termed ineffectual. This can also be termed as a lenient dispute settlement mechanism.

      China is taking advantage of the fact that WTO’s dispute settlement mechanism takes years. Therefore, option C. is factually incorrect, besides it missing the main point of the paragraph.

      See the answer’s explanation in my comment below.
      Do take a shot at today’s question:
      http://tathagat.mba/verbal-question-of-the-day-24/

  4. TG.Prabhat

    The answer is B. It captures the conclusion that WTO’s dispute settlement mechanism has lost meaning in today’s fast moving scenario, and also provides one of the main reasons in support of that: a time-consuming process.

    Further explanation:

    A. This restates the premises of the argument and misses its main point.

    C. This is factually incorrect- China is not technically taking advantage of WTO’s ‘lenient’ dispute settlement mechanism, but of the fact that it takes years.

    D. This is a generalization that mentions only the subsidiary problem in international trade. The main issue is non-compliant tariffs being imposed by countries.

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