Decades of negotiation to extend the GATT/WTO system to address subsidies have never produced the sort of uniform, scheduled rules that apply to tariffs or even services. Instead, WTO members have developed rules to demarcate permissible and impermissible subsidies. In this paper, I argue that the WTO approach is now hampered by shifts in the share of global trade away from geopolitically aligned, wealthy states and the growth of global supply chains. These pressures were magnified by the accession of China, with its centrality to global trade and recurrent geopolitical tensions with the United States. The challenges in facing cooperation over subsidies suggest limits to the ability for a ‘rules based’ approach to handle substantial changes in the global trading system.