WTO at impasse over U.S., Venezuela

The World Trade Organization suspended a meeting of its dispute settlement body after the U.S. rejected Venezuela’s request for a probe into Trump-era sanctions against President Nicolas Maduro’s government.

The highly unusual move, relayed by an official inside a closed meeting on Friday, risks grinding the WTO’S dispute settlement process to a halt and marks another example of how the Biden administration is continuing Donald Trump’s hardball tactics at the Geneva-based trade body.

The U.S. “exercised its rights as a WTO member to object to this illegitimate panel request because representatives of the Maduro regime do not speak on behalf of the Venezuelan people,” according to a statement issued by the U.S. Mission in Geneva. “The U.S. will reject any effort by Maduro to misuse the WTO to attack U.S. sanctions aimed at restoring human rights and democracy to Venezuela.”

The meeting ended prematurely after Venezuela refused Washington’s demand that the WTO remove Venezuela’s dispute request from the meeting agenda, according to the official attending the meeting. The impasse means that the WTO can’t hold any regular dispute settlement meetings unless and until the U.S. or Venezuela back down. most of the world’s big deals, it missed on takeovers such as Facebook Inc.’s 2012 bid for photo-sharing site Instagram and other deals because its merger review guidelines didn’t let it scrutinize acquisitions of companies without large revenue streams.

Regulators will now be able to ask national authorities to send them deals they see as potentially troublesome that would otherwise escape a review, particularly purchases of nascent rivals in the digital, pharmaceutical, and biotechnology industries, the EU said in a press release.