1 Apocalypse now: The WTO dispute settlement system in the times of Trump Lukasz Gruszczynski* forthcoming in Ch.-h. Wu, F. Giumelli & F. Gaenssmantel (eds.), The Uneasy Triangle of the US, the EU and China, Routledge, London-New York: 2022 As famously stated by Pascal Lamy, the dispute settlement system (DSS) should be seen as the real crown jewel of the World Trade Organization (WTO), an organization that still remains a main forum for the administration of international trade relations. Its mandatory character, comparative efficiency, impartiality and judicial quality, combined with its unique system of institutionalized trade sanctions, has allowed for relatively smooth functioning of international trade for the last decades. This system, however, has come under growing pressure over the last years. The most serious challenge was posed by a decision of the former United States (US) administration to block the appointment of new members of the Appellate Body (AB), the highest quasi-judicial organ of the WTO, eventually leading to its completely paralysis. In this context, many commentators have asked whether, without an appellate review, the WTO DSS or the organization as a whole can survive. The objective of this chapter is to look more closely at the crisis of the WTO DSS. In particular, the chapter intends to examine the reasons underlying the US decision and evaluate the reactions of other WTO Members. The subsequent discussion is therefore organized in the following way. The first part briefly describes the shift in the American trade policy under the Trump administration. Against this background, the second section examines the dynamics of the crisis that unfolded in the WTO with respect to the DSS, while the third section tries to uncover the motives that underlie the strategy adopted by the US. The fourth section concentrates on various solutions that have been proposed / implemented in order to save/revive the AB or the WTO DSS more generally. The last section assesses the current state of affairs and looks into the near future, connecting at the same time the discussion with the main theme of the book. TRUMP AND THE NEW AMERICAN TRADE POLICY International trade played an important role during the 2016 US presidential election campaign (Gruszczynski & Lawrence 2018, pp. 26-29). The topic was first picked up by Donald Trump and was gradually taken up by the other candidates from both the Republican and Democratic