New Delhi, July 23 -- Trade cynicism is hard to escape in a world where the US cites an anti-discrimination law to slap Canada with new tariffs even as its leader hints of it as payback for despatches of wildfire smoke.

As US policy turns into parody, the World Trade Organization (WTO) watches its salience recede. Yet, we have good reason to stay engaged with this multilateral setter of rules.

The latest trade policy review of India put out by the WTO Secretariat does not speak of any tension between trade principles and its realistic prospects, but seems haunted by it all the same.

The report places the country's trade policy in the context of its Viksit Bharat aim of developed status by 2047. To get there, it notes, India's economy w...