WTO, under fire from US, meets in Buenos Aires

BUENOS AIRES: The World Trade Organisation opened a conference on Sunday under the cloud of US hostility to multilateral trade accords.

The 164-member WTO is also wracked by disagreements over China and has been struggling to kickstart stalled trade talks.

The Buenos Aires meeting, which ends tomorrow, is the first in the era of US President Donald Trump, who has pummelled the body relentlessly since taking office, describing it as a “disaster”.

The Trump administration has made the WTO a preferred target of its “America First” policy, threatening to pull the US out of the trade organisation it says is hampering its ability to compete.

Argentina’s President Mauricio Macri said, in opening remarks, that “WTO problems get fixed with more WTO ... not with less WTO.”

Trump has already withdrawn the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and insisted on renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Mexico and Canada.

WTO director-general Roberto Azevedo said on Sunday he will ask US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer for “political commitment, political will and flexibility.”

“Without flexibility we will not get anywhere,” Azevedo said at an opening press conference at a hotel here.

Washington has been blamed for blocking appointments of judges to the WTO’s dispute settlement system, saying it was ineffective and insisting on a more aggressive approach to defending its interests.

The dispute body arbitrates international rows over subsidies or tariffs, among other things playing an important role in the standoff between US and European plane-makers Boeing and Airbus.

The European Union, on the other hand, comes to the conference with a robust spirit of multilateralism. The EU and Japan announced on Friday that they have finalised a major trade agreement.

EU officials will also meet with counterparts from the South American trade bloc known as Mercosur to continue talks on a free trade accord. These discussions have been going on for nearly 20 years. – AFP

AFPPIX Argentinian President Mauricio Macri (left) and his Paraguayan counterpart Horacio Cartes arrive to attend the opening ceremony of the 11th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation in Buenos Aires on Sunday.