CANADA PUSHES BACK
WTO plan targets ‘America First’
The Canadian GENEVA government released a new blueprint Tuesday to reinforce the World Trade Organization and buffer it from U.S. President Donald Trump’s “America First” attacks on the Genevabased trade body.
The proposal, called “Strengthening and Modernizing the WTO,” seeks to forge an alliance of likeminded countries to “restore confidence in the multilateral trading system and discourage protectionist measures and countermeasures,” according to a copy of the eight-page document.
The effort is one of several initiatives aimed at shoring up the WTO as it faces crises that could sideline its role as the arbiter of global trade. Trump has threatened to withdraw from the WTO, attacked the group as being biased against U.S. interests and is slowly strangling the dispute settlement system, which mediates disputes.
Trade ministers from the European Union and a dozen other WTO members are expected to discuss the proposal when they meet in Ottawa from Oct. 24-25.
“We know that the WTO is not perfect, but we know it’s good and we seek to make it better,” Trade Minister Jim Carr said at Council on Foreign Relations event in New York on Tuesday. “So we’ve invited these like-minded nations from all over the world to see if we can’t come up with a consensus for reform that we will then roll out for other members of the WTO.”
The Canadian paper focuses on three specific areas for reforming the WTO: Improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the monitoring function; safeguard and strengthen the dispute settlement system; and lay the foundation for modernizing the substantive trade rules.
The paper addresses the WTO’s dispute settlement system and looks at ways to improve the organization’s ability to monitor international trade practices. It also seeks to modernize the WTO’s rules to address 21st century trade practices involving digital trade, international investment, domestic regulations, state-owned enterprises, industrial subsidies and trade secrets.
Since 2017, the Trump administration has refused to appoint and reappoint members to the appellate body, which has the final say in upholding, modifying, or reversing WTO rulings. If the U.S. continues its hold, the body will be paralyzed by late 2019 because it will lack the three panellists required to sign off on rulings.
The office of the U.S. Trade Representative didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment and it’s not clear if the Trump administration would support the Canadian effort.