The World Trade Organization “is getting itself on very, very thin ice” by ruling that the US violated trade rules with Trump-era steel and aluminum tariffs, Trade Representative Katherine Tai said, adding that the finding “challenges the integrity of the system.”

The WTO ruling, issued earlier this month, “really challenges the integrity of the system,” Tai said Monday. That’s because it “gets deep into creating requirements and parameters for what is or is not a legitimate national-security decision.”

Trade Representative Katherine Tai

The organization “should not get into the business of second-guessing the national-security decisions that are made by sovereign governments,” she said. “It is the responsibility of governments to bring integrity to their decisions on national security.” 

On Dec. 9, the WTO dispute-settlement panel said the 25% tariffs on global steel imports and 10% import taxes on global aluminum instituted under former President Donald Trump violated the body’s rules. It said US national-security claims “are not justified” because they were not “taken in time of war or other emergency in international relations.” 

The US strongly rejected the report’s findings and won’t remove its duties as a result of the rulings, the Office of the US Trade Representative said at the time.  

Tai on Monday reinforced the rejection of the findings. 

“Our response is very much focused on the reasoning that is in that panel report, Tai said in an interview at the Council of Foreign Relations in Washington. 

“It is a very challenging place to be to have unelected, not really accountable decision-makers in Geneva second-guess processes that are run through a government like ours which is democratic,” she said.