I mean it's not just a lemmy thing it's an internet thing, but mostly common in places people don't know the autor very well and the autor decides to not use any form of indication they are using sarcasm.
Sarcasm and rethoric questions rely heavily on human conection and being able to read tonal shifts or gestures of the speaker. You don't have any of that on the internet.
Yes, you can take the absurdity of some claims as an indicator some people might be using sarcasm... Then again you look what is happening world wide, and some of the absurdities being said cannot be taken as someone taking the piss but much rather hey this unknown person might hold this believes.
So when writing and wanting to use sarcasm please be classy enough to leave a clue that it's sarcasm by using an /s as β οΈ or writting in italics.
I mean for years now (at least since Obama) the US has been trying to destroy the WTO piece by piece as the fundamentals of the WTO do not align with the US trade policies and do favor China. So they wanted an organisation that favours the US. Obama started it by blocking the appointment of WTO appellate members, leading the WTO to being nothing more than a construct not able to enforce its rules. Trump kept that blockade and started a trade war with China, but since he needs attention he did this very publicly. When Brandon came around, he kept what Trump did as a meassure against China and kept the blockade alive, he was just quiet about it. Now Trump came again and saw it's still standing and did set up for the final blow, but did it in such a castastrophic clumsy way... the plan of replacing the WTO with another US centric organisation is now as unrealistic as it could be.