Donald Trump promised to shake up US trade policy and just weeks into his presidency, even traditional allies are nervous.

He has pulled the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which predecessor Barack Obama agreed with Japan and 10 other Asia-Pacific economies. Talks are under way to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico. The EU has also conceded its own trade talks with the US have been put on ice thanks to a new president who says he would rather negotiate a deal with a departing member, the UK. 

But the Trump administration’s latest target, the World Trade Organisation, potentially dwarfs all those. If things go wrong it could bring down an institution that, although only two decades old, is a pillar of the economic order the US helped establish after the second world war.