Tag Archives: World Trade Organization

WTO chief seeks to wrap up fish talks as developing countries cry foul

By Emma Farge

GENEVA (Reuters) -The head of the World Trade Organization on Thursday expressed optimism about clinching a long-awaited deal to stop overfishing, but some developing states criticized the draft agreement and India called parts of it “unjust.”

The virtual conference in Geneva – the first meeting of WTO trade ministers since 2017 – is hoping to wrap up 20 years of talks and set out rules to curb harmful subsidies that lead to overfishing.

The global trade body has not reached a multilateral deal in years and Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who took office in March, said at the start of the conference that it would be a “litmus test” of the WTO’s ability to do so.

“I believe that we are all genuinely committed, but a shift of mindset is necessary for us to bridge the final gaps that continue to separate members,” she said at the WTO headquarters in Geneva.

The eight-page draft deal lists a range of subsidy bans, with some conditions for exemptions for poorer countries that are yet to be finalized by negotiators.

But several ministers expressed reservations – pointing to a gulf between wealthier countries and some developing states that want to build up their fleets with the help of subsidies.

“Clearly, it will lead to capacity constraints for developing countries, while advanced nations will continue to grant subsidies,” Indian trade minister Piyush Goyal said on one part of the text. “This is unequal, unfair, unjust.”

Pakistan described the draft as “regressive and unbalanced.” The African group, seen by many as losing out from subsidies which allow big industrial fleets to compete in its waters, said that “significant gaps on core issues” remained.

One delegate from a wealthy country described some of the criticisms as “obstructionist.” “The major fault line is still special and differential treatment,” they told Reuters, asking not to be named.

Several delegates said India’s strong stance might be about seeking a trade-off in separate WTO negotiations on a patent waiver for COVID-19 drugs which some wealthy countries oppose.

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said the draft had “significant shortcomings.” “WTO members must ask whether the current negotiating text reflects the best we can do after 20 years,” she said.

China – the top subsidizer accounting for about 21% of the $35.4 billion in handouts globally according to a 2019 study  – appeared to offer one key concession.

In a hint that China might forego at least some exemptions for itself, Commerce minister Wang Wentao said that they should be “mainly provided for poor and vulnerable artisanal fishers” in developing and least developed countries.

The European Union was upbeat, saying the draft formed the basis of a potential agreement.

Negotiators got close to a deal at the last WTO ministerial conference in 2017 but the talks collapsed, with some observers blaming developing countries who sought big exemptions.

Any deal needs all 164 parties to approve it by consensus.

(Additional reporting by Philip Blenkinsop in Brussels; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Andrew Heavens)

Washington says it’s ready to engage on WTO reform

By Emma Farge

GENEVA (Reuters) – The United States is committed to “positive, constructive and active engagement” with all members of the World Trade Organization on reforming the body and is actively considering who to choose as its next chief, a U.S. official said on Friday.

The comments by David Bisbee, charge d’affaires at the U.S. mission to the WTO, are an early sign of how U.S. President Joe Biden plans to approach the global trade body.

“The United States stands ready to engage on all of these difficult issues,” Bisbee told a virtual informal WTO ministerial gathering in place of the annual Davos meeting.

The 164-member WTO has gone for months without a director-general after the Trump administration rejected a candidate from Nigeria, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

Its top appeals body that arbitrates on global trade disputes is also inoperable because the former U.S. administration refused judge appointments, accusing the body of overstepping its mandate and making unjustified trade rules.

“We look forward to progress on this (the selection of a new director-general) and other key priorities in the near future,” said Bisbee.

Among the other issues he mentioned were ongoing talks on fisheries subsidies and the next ministerial conference.

One delegate described the U.S. speech as “positive news.”

Reform of the 25-year-old WTO, including its Appellate Body, is widely seen as a top priority, although countries have widely different views about how this should be done.

The European Union is due to submit a WTO reform proposal next month.

(Reporting by Emma Farge; Editing by Gareth Jones)

EU set to impose tariffs on $4 billion U.S. goods next week

By Philip Blenkinsop

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Union is likely to impose tariffs on $4 billion of U.S. imports including planes and plane parts next week in retaliation over U.S. subsidies for aircraft maker Boeing, EU diplomats said on Friday.

A majority of EU governments have already backed the tariffs, which are expected to be put in place after a meeting of EU trade ministers on Monday.

“I would expect the tariffs to be imposed next Tuesday or Wednesday,” an EU diplomat said.

The move will echo U.S. tariffs on European goods over subsidies for Boeing’s rival Airbus. Combined, the two cases represent the world’s largest ever corporate trade dispute.

The World Trade Organization gave the European Union the right to impose counter-measures, but the United States said that there was no legal basis this and that, if the bloc chose to impose measures, it “will force a U.S. response”.

The move puts the long-running transatlantic trade dispute on the radar of the next U.S. administration, whoever wins the closely fought election.

The European Union could have acted at the end of October, just days before the U.S. election, but chose to delay in order to avoid potentially impacting the outcome. EU governments formally cleared the move on Tuesday, election day.

Tariffs are due to be placed on U.S. planes and parts, fruits, nuts and other farm produce, processed products such as orange juice, certain spirits and a range of other goods, from construction equipment to casino tables, diplomats said.

The European Commission said it was finalizing the process to exercise its retaliation rights in case no agreed solution could be found with Washington, including the immediate suspension of U.S. measures.

The United States Trade Representative had no immediate comment.

The United States already has tariffs on $7.5 billion of EU and British goods in relation to a parallel case over subsidies for European plane maker Airbus.

Chris Swonger, president and CEO of the Distilled Spirits Council of the U.S., said any tariffs on spirits would further devastate an industry that has already seen a 41% drop in U.S. whisky exports to Europe due to previous EU tariffs.

The tariffs also hand Britain, which left the EU this year, a delicate decision about whether to join its neighbors in imposing tariffs at a time when it is in the midst of trade negotiations with both the United States and European Union.

Britain’s trade minister said last week it would “keep all options open” to ensure it can respond to U.S. tariffs on Scotch whisky and other industries. Britain is one of four Airbus partner nations alongside France, Germany and Spain.

(Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop, additional reporting by Andrea Shalal in Washington, Editing by Tim Hepher)

U.S. says something ‘terribly wrong’ at WTO, attacks China

The headquarters of the World Trade Organization (WTO) are pictured in Geneva, Switzerland, April 12, 2017. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse

By Tom Miles

GENEVA (Reuters) – The new U.S. ambassador to the World Trade Organization told the WTO’s membership on Tuesday that something had gone “terribly wrong” with judges at the world body and that China’s arguments showed Beijing was living in a fantasy.

Addressing the WTO’s General Council for the first time, Dennis Shea said the WTO’s rules had substantial value and the rules had “generally contributed” to global economic stability.

But he said there was a “steadily worsening rupture of trust” by the Appellate Body — the judges who form what is effectively the supreme court of world trade, and whose appointments the United States has been blocking.

“Something has gone terribly wrong in this system when those charged with adjudicating the rules are so consistently disregarding those very rules,” Shea said, according to a copy of his remarks provided to Reuters.

The judges had interpreted the WTO agreements to reach judgments that the WTO’s member countries never agreed to and had expanded its own capacity to write new rules, he said.

As an example of judicial rule-breaking, he cited delays in legal rulings, which are supposed to come within 90 days. They are routinely late — the result, many experts say, of ever-more complicated disputes piling up in a congested system.

“Our goal is to ensure that any system of dispute settlement can sustain the support of all members,” Shea said. “We do not see how perpetuating the existing dysfunctions through a complacent approach to the filling of Appellate Body vacancies can advance that objective.”

China had put the Appellate Body situation on the agenda of the meeting, as well as U.S. steel tariffs and President Donald Trump’s threat to penalize China for alleged theft of U.S. intellectual property.

China denies U.S. accusations that it trades unfairly by subsidizing steel production and coercing foreign firms to transfer technology to Chinese competitors. It has accused Trump of endangering the WTO system by acting recklessly and unilaterally.

U.S.-China trade talks will resume next week after failing to reach agreement last week, the White House said on Monday.

Shea said he was “perplexed” by China’s assertion that it was a victim.

“Mr. Chairman, we have now entered the realm of Alice in Wonderland. White is black. Up is down,” he said.

“It is amazing to watch a country that is the world’s most protectionist, mercantilist economy position itself as the self-proclaimed defender of free trade and the global trading system. The WTO must avoid falling down this rabbit hole into a fantasy world, lest it lose all credibility.”

The WTO must not shield countries that undermined the global trading system, he said.

“If the WTO wishes to remain relevant, it must – with urgency – confront the havoc created by China’s state capitalism.”

(Reporting by Tom Miles; editing by Stephanie Nebehay, Larry King)

Trump to order a study on abuses of U.S. trade agreements

FILE PHOTO: The headquarters of the World Trade Organization (WTO) are pictured in Geneva, Switzerland, April 12, 2017. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo

By Ayesha Rascoe

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Saturday seeking to identify any problems caused by the nation’s existing trade agreements, including an examination of U.S. involvement in the World Trade Organization, a top trade official said.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said his department would work to issue a report in 180 days outlining challenges with these trade deals and possible solutions.

Ross singled out the World Trade Organization as an entity that may need to make some changes, although he cautioned that the administration had not made any decisions yet.

“There’s always the potential for amending organization’s charters like the WTO, particularly when you’re in the position we are,” he said. “We’re the number one importer in the whole world.”

Ross raised concerns that the WTO is too bureaucratic and does not hold meetings often enough. He also argued that the WTO has an “institutional bias” in favor of exporters and against countries that are being “beleaguered by inappropriate imports.”

Remaking U.S. trade relations has been a top priority for Trump, who has argued that the United States has been treated unfairly in international trade.

Trump said on Thursday that he had been prepared to terminate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and Mexico, but backed off after calls from the leaders of those two countries.

The effects of NAFTA on the U.S. economy will also be examined in the new study.

Last month, Trump also issued an order calling for a major review of the causes of all U.S. trade deficits.

(Reporting by Ayesha Rascoe; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Let’s minimize the damage of Brexit, Eurogroup chief says

BERLIN (Reuters) - Britain and the remaining 27 members of the European Union should stay away from the cliff edge of Britain falling back on World Trade Organization terms at the end of Brexit negotiations, Eurogroup chairman Jeroen Dijsselbloem said. "Let's try to minimize the damage," he said of Brexit, speaking at a banking conference in Berlin on Thursday. Dijsselbloem, who said he would discuss Greece with German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble while in Berlin, said the more he thought about Brexit, the more worried he became. He singled out financial stability as one area of particular risk. Asked about "passporting" rights for Britain-based institutions to sell financial services in the EU single market after Brexit, Dijsselbloem replied: "I think, also talking to financial players from the City, that passporting won't be the answer. There will be different regimes for different sub-sectors of the financial sector." "Equivalence will be part of the solution," he added of a system whereby Brussels grants access to non-EU firms that comply with rules similar to those in the bloc. "But here again, declaring the rules and regulations and the supervision of the UK equivalent to that of the EU at the outset is quite easy, but over time our standards and the way of supervision will start to diverge," Dijsselbloem said. "So if you want to maintain equivalence over time you will have to commit, also in the long-run, to staying close to the European standards," he added. "Looking to the future, we will have to find to ways to regularly assess whether we are still equivalent." (Writing by Paul Carrel Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)

BERLIN (Reuters) – Britain and the remaining 27 members of the European Union should stay away from the cliff edge of Britain falling back on World Trade Organization terms at the end of Brexit negotiations, Eurogroup chairman Jeroen Dijsselbloem said.

“Let’s try to minimize the damage,” he said of Brexit, speaking at a banking conference in Berlin on Thursday.

Dijsselbloem, who said he would discuss Greece with German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble while in Berlin, said the more he thought about Brexit, the more worried he became. He singled out financial stability as one area of particular risk.

Asked about “passporting” rights for Britain-based institutions to sell financial services in the EU single market after Brexit, Dijsselbloem replied: “I think, also talking to financial players from the City, that passporting won’t be the answer. There will be different regimes for different sub-sectors of the financial sector.”

“Equivalence will be part of the solution,” he added of a system whereby Brussels grants access to non-EU firms that comply with rules similar to those in the bloc.

“But here again, declaring the rules and regulations and the supervision of the UK equivalent to that of the EU at the outset is quite easy, but over time our standards and the way of supervision will start to diverge,” Dijsselbloem said.

“So if you want to maintain equivalence over time you will have to commit, also in the long-run, to staying close to the European standards,” he added. “Looking to the future, we will have to find to ways to regularly assess whether we are still equivalent.”

(Writing by Paul Carrel Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)

Trump’s leadership is vital for world trading system

World Trade Organization Director-general Roberto Azevedo speaks at the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank Group in Washington,

By Tom Miles

GENEVA (Reuters) – The head of the World Trade Organization said on Wednesday the United States continued to hold a pivotal role in global commerce, and he would support the administration of Donald Trump in ensuring trade was a positive force for job creation.

“U.S. leadership in the global economy and the multilateral trading system remains vital,” WTO Director General Roberto Azevedo tweeted, while congratulating Trump on his presidential election victory.

“It’s clear many feel trade isn’t working for them. We must address this and ensure trade delivers the widest benefit to the most people.”

Trump has described the Geneva-based trading club as a “disaster” and suggested he could pull the United States out of the WTO if the rules proved an obstacle to his plans to protect U.S. manufacturing.

He has promised to punish U.S. firms that move jobs to Mexico and slap a 45 percent tariff on Chinese imports to try to claw back a trade deficit with China that the U.S. government put at $367 billion in 2015.

Azevedo, whose leadership of the WTO gives him a role as a guardian of trade openness, has declined to criticize Trump’s remarks.

But Azevedo said in July that trade was “so obviously positive for every economy that it’s like trying to argue with a friend that he needs to breathe”.

In his tweeted reaction to Trump’s election, he said the WTO was “ready to support the administration to ensure trade is a positive element in a new strategy for development and job creation”.

His spokesman said Azevedo would not be commenting further on Wednesday.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Hugh Lawson and John Stonestreet)

World Trade Organization Cuts 2013 Growth Forecast

The World Trade Organization has announced a cut in the 2013 growth forecast from 4.5% to 3.3%.

The WTO tried to downplay the weaker growth by claiming that in 2014 the world trade market should grow 5%.

“There is a need for more rules-based trade in order to reduce unemployment and to stimulate growth,” WTO director general Pascal Lamy told reporters. In addition to the unemployment, the weaknesses in European economies will continue to drag down trade. Continue reading →