U.S. officials not invited to world trade meeting
ONLY ‘LIKE-MINDED PEOPLE’ INVITED TO WTO GATHERING HOSTED BY FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
When Canada hosts senior ministers from 13 nations later this month to discuss the future of the World Trade Organization, one country will be conspicuously absent from those discussions: the United States.
The revelation comes on the heels of the conclusion of tumultuous negotiations between Canada, the United States and Mexico over free trade in North America. And the choice to exclude the United States, said international trade diversification minister Jim Carr, was based on the fact that America doe not share the views of the other invited countries on the virtues of the WTO.
“We think that the best way to sequence the discussion is to start with like-minded people, and that’s whom we have invited and they’re coming,” Carr told The Canadian Press. “Those who believe that a rules-based system is in the interests of the international community will meet to come up with a consensus that we will then move out into nations who might have been more resistant.”
The Conservative party’s trade critic, Dean Allison, said in an interview he sees it as a snub to the United States and that the government should extend an invitation in the coming weeks.
“The reality is, I believe, that we should be keeping our closest allies as close as we can,” Allison said. “If part of the challenges we have with this fragile environment involves the United States, if that’s a concern, then we should have them at the meetings.”
The WTO governs international trade rules, and also acts as an adjudicator of trade disputes. It has been a target under President Donald Trump with Larry Kudlow, Trump’s top economic adviser, describing the body as “broken.”
Greg Anderson, a University of Alberta political science professor and expert on the international political economy, cautioned against pinning the WTO spat on Trump.
“What’s going on with the WTO is a long-standing set of complaints by the United States,” Anderson said. “These are not new complaints, it’s just that the Trump people are willing to throw the Molotov cocktail to do something about it.”
The United States has blocked the appointments of new judges to the WTO’S dispute settlement body, a move which is threatening to paralyze the organization and prevent it from making decisions.
Michael Manjuris, a Ryerson University professor, said the United States’ intransigence on dispute resolution causes uncertainty for business.
“The basic premise is to ensure that going forward, we have established rules that everybody understands and that allows for businesses then to make clear investment decisions as they look at the global market,” Manjuris said. “Without that, if you’re a businessperson, it’s like, ‘Ok, what do I do with my plans?’ ”
A document distributed to the 13 invited nations says the “impasse of the appointment of the appellate body members threatens to bring the whole dispute settlement system to a halt.”
“You want your major trading partners to admit that you need a dispute settlement mechanism,” Carr said.
And so, no invite to the U.S.
“You stand up to a bully by being firm,” said Manjuris. “And that’s what our guys are doing. You can’t back down.”
Carr said the countries want to persuade Washington of the WTO’S continued usefulness, but the best way to do that — for now — is without the U.S. in the room.
The eight-page Canadian discussion paper lays out three broad themes for the discussion: safeguarding and strengthening the dispute settlement system; improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the WTO monitoring function; and modernizing trade rules for the 21st century.
On the latter point, the paper acknowledges that “aging trade rules need to be updated urgently to respond to the needs of the modern global economy,” but notes “there is a divergence about the priorities.”
The paper doesn’t single out the U.S. by name, but it makes clear that international trading institutions are “increasingly fragile.”
“The challenges facing the multilateral trading system cannot be attributed to any single cause or any single country,” the document says.
“However, the combination of disruption and paralysis has begun to erode respect for rules-based trade, and the institutions that govern it, paving the way for trade-distorting policies.”
There are multiple concerns, Anderson said, with the WTO, and they vary between the 160 or so member countries, with significant differences between rich and poor nations.
While Canada might be concerned about dispute resolution, Anderson said poorer ones are concerned about subsidies for agriculture in wealthy countries.
Canada is inviting Australia, Brazil, Chile, the European Union, Japan, Kenya, South Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore and Switzerland to two days of talks on the WTO starting Oct. 24 in Ottawa.
“By and large, those are rich countries,” said Anderson. “It’s not going to be entirely a waste of time, but is it going to jump-start anything or is it going to upset the U.S. administration and prompt them to withdraw? No, I don’t think so.”