But altering China’s behavior on that front will require new international rules and some form of independent monitoring.

One obstacle, of course, is that Mr. Trump seems dead set against any such institution or arrangement. His administration has prematurely killed off the Trans-Pacific Partnership, as well as prospects for a bilateral investment treaty with China. And it is trying to do in the W.T.O.

It is blocking the appointment of new judges to the W.T.O. body that adjudicates trade disputes and threatening to withdraw from the organization itself — this even though America was instrumental in creating it in 1995 and has benefited greatly from its existence.

The Trump administration is also eroding W.T.O. rules by apparently violating them. It is invoking national security to apply punitive tariffs such as levies on steel — a move that China, the European Union and others are challenging.

China, for its part, has generally accepted the organization’s rulings since joining it in 2001, despite being the target of a disproportionately large share of dumping charges. The W.T.O. has come down hard on China, and China has taken it, in other words, and that should be reason enough for the United States to work through the organization to resolve its issues with the Chinese government.

That said, the W.T.O. as currently structured cannot adequately deal with a state-driven economy like China’s, as Mark Wu, a law professor at Harvard, has argued. Yes, China has cut back on directly subsidizing exports, a clear violation of W.T.O. guidelines. But many Chinese companies still benefit indirectly from access to underpriced state-owned land and privileged relations with local authorities and banks, and those issues are not explicitly covered in the regulations.

So the W.T.O. needs to be revamped and strengthened, including with new rules to clarify what constitutes noncommercial assistance to state-owned enterprises and what conditions governments can impose on foreign participation in joint ventures.