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The Trump administration has stepped up its attack on the World Trade Organization ahead of a crunch meeting in March, stating that the body’s core principle of reciprocity in trade is dead.

The US declared that the “era had passed” for the long-standing most-favoured nation (MFN) principle, which requires countries not to discriminate between their trading partners, in a memo circulated to WTO diplomats and seen by the Financial Times.

“The MFN principle . . . was designed for an era of deepening convergence among trading partners,” the document said. “That expectation was naive, and that era has passed.”

The memo reflects Donald Trump’s unilateralist approach to trade as the WTO enters a critical phase of reform. The trade body is considering allowing coalitions of willing nations to make ‘‘plurilateral’’ trade policy among themselves — something blocked by current requirements for unanimity.  

The talks on reform will come to a head at the WTO’s ministerial meeting in the Cameroonian capital of Yaoundé next March.

Sam Lowe, trade policy lead at consultancy Flint Global, said the document was ‘‘final confirmation’’ that the US ‘‘would rather set tariffs unilaterally with countries on a case-by-case basis”.

The six-page document lists US grievances against the organisation with what one diplomat called “brutal clarity”. It includes thinly veiled attacks on China for racking up massive trade surpluses and India for blocking improvements to WTO decision making.

However, a second diplomat involved in the WTO reform process welcomed the US contribution. 

“It is a good statement: constructive in tone and clearly stating what the US thinks of the ongoing reform process. This will help everyone understand better the realities under which we are doing this process,” the diplomat added. 

In an apparent warning to India and South Africa, which have both repeatedly blocked such reforms, the US said that “if there is no path for members to enter into plurilateral agreements at the WTO, we must acknowledge that the WTO is not a viable forum for negotiating”.

With China’s trade surplus increasing to more than $1tn this year, the US attacked the WTO for its repeated failure to address trade imbalances, which it blames on unfair subsidies for the steel and auto industries. 

“The WTO — its committees, dispute settlement system and negotiating arm — is not able to address these systemic problems,” the US delegation wrote. 

The memo comes as the Trump administration sends mixed signals about its commitment to the organisation. Trump himself has said that the 1994 agreement to establish the WTO “was the single worst trade deal ever made” but has never followed through on threats to withdraw completely.

The trade body’s main enforcement mechanism — the Appellate Body — has been moribund since 2019, after the US rendered it inquorate by refusing to send judges to staff the body.

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But the Trump administration has appointed veteran trade lawyer Joseph Barloon as its new ambassador to the WTO, who struck a relatively constructive tone in his US Senate confirmation hearings in June.

It also quietly paid more than $25mn in overdue membership fees to the WTO in a signal that it still intended to engage with the organisation, if only on its own terms.

However, Simon Evenett, professor of geopolitics and strategy at IMD Business School in Lausanne, Switzerland, said the memo ultimately left scant room for optimism about US faith in the WTO reform process.  

“The US is making plain that the WTO is no longer central to the trade governance — not quite Samson pulling down the temple, more like just ignoring it,” he said.

The WTO and the Trump administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment.