No. It is a designation that countries are allowed to go by the book. And the book is here:
Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States.
Thanks for posting the link. It was very instructive.
The current meaning of MFN is not what it used to mean at the start of this republic. The effect of MFN now is to just grant Normal Trade Relations (NTR); however, that was not always the case. The meaning of the term changed starting in the 1930’s as did the number of countries to which we extended MFN status. If your point is that we do not have free-trade, I agree with you. We don’t. No country in the world truly has free trade. So, it’s a very Utopian idea to believe in free trade. A much more effective approach is to have bilateral trading agreements based on mutual interests and national security considerations. My problem with the pro “free-trade” movement is that they wish to extend NTR and even so-called Free Trade Agreements to countries hostile to our national interest and without regard for the economic consequences of this liberalized trade. They are also very comfortable with the notion of surrendering our sovereignty to extra-Constitutional organizations such as the WTO.
Returning to my point about China’s MFN status, it was a huge sell-out by our politicians and the consequences have been disastrous to our nation. If you don’t think that MFN resulted in reduced tariffs for the Chinese, here’s a report by the CRS which clearly shows the benefit such a status provides: