President Donald Trump has the World Trade Organization in a chokehold, and the United States has made clear what he wants: No more judicial rulings that interpret WTO rules to Washington's disadvantage.

Trump has effectively engineered a crisis in the WTO's system of settling global disputes by vetoing all appointments of judges to its appeals chamber.

True to the president's style, his ambassador to the Geneva-based body, Dennis Shea, is unapologetic about shrinking the supreme court of world trade to a size where it will struggle to function.