Experts Wonder If COVID-19 Will Provide Momentum to E-Commerce Talks at WTO

Although China, the U.S. and the European Union have taken actions during the COVID-19 pandemic that are damaging to the goal of free trade, Canadian diplomats and scholars at the Peterson Institute for International Economics said that doesn't mean we're headed for a new round of sphere-of-influence-style trading chains rather than global integration.

Jeff Schott, a senior fellow at PIIE, said, “It’s very hard to be optimistic because we had a crisis in the trading system before the pandemic, and the pandemic has made it worse.” He said that while it's true that supply chains need more redundancies as “a necessary insurance,” it's wrong to see nationalizing production as the solution. He reminded listeners on the May 22 PIIE webinar that the meat-packing industry is having disruption, and that has nothing to do with trade.

“We’ve seen a number of large members take action that we think runs counter to that spirit of open … markets but these are still early days,” responded Stephen de Boer, Canada's ambassador to the World Trade Organization. “Let’s not get too carried away about what the larger members are doing. We’re already seeing some change in attitudes with respect to the EU, for example.”

The EU has loosened some restrictions on export controls of medical supplies needed to fight the coronavirus disease spread. Schott acknowledged that, and noted that even though the G-20 was more supportive of liberalizing trade in response to the global recession in 2008, “the implementation was spotty and ineffectual.” He said he's worried that there will be trade conflict around vaccines or medicines for treating COVID-19, as the rights of developing countries with regard to pharmaceuticals “has been a contentious issue in the WTO for a long time.”

“I’ve been mostly negative, but there is one area that offers some hope, and that is the WTO has been working on digital trade.”

Anabel Gonzalez, who hosted the webinar and who used to be a senior director at the WTO, said the COVID-19 pandemic has moved business into e-commerce more strongly, “but we still don’t have global rules in this area.”

De Boer said he thinks e-commerce negotiations do need to be a priority, and that he hopes that negotiations will be done using videoconferencing. He said many countries at the WTO say that they can't use a virtual platform for decision-making, but hammering out an agreement in a room in Geneva doesn't necessarily make sense during a pandemic.