After World War II, the United States spearheaded the liberal international order and pursued its global diffusion as the dominant political and economic system, promising to satisfy human needs through freer trade, multilateral institutions, and democracy. The World Trade Organization (WTO) was born from the order in the pursuit of lessening trade barriers, creating a predictable globalized economy, and establishing an official legal foundation for international trade. This delicate global trading system thrived only to be later challenged by the very nation responsible for its rise, primarily through a recent manipulation of the national security justification, addressed in Article XXI of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which permits a country’s exception from WTO legal regulations when necessary to protect essential national security interests. The national security exemption in trade is further represented in U.S. courts through Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. The United States’ recent manipulation of the national security exception upheld in the WTO’s Article XXI of the GATT, as well as the U.S.'s Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, violates WTO international trade law obligations and undermines its dispute settlement system.

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