The June 8-11 ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization will not go forward, the director general of the WTO told members March 12. The coronavirus pandemic makes it not feasible, he said. A worldwide agreement on fisheries subsidies was supposed to come together in time for the meeting.

The Trade Facilitation Agreement reached a 91% ratification rate among World Trade Organization members three years after it was introduced, according to a Feb. 22 news release from the WTO. The TFA, which applies only to WTO members who accept it, has the “potential” to “slash members' trade costs by an average” of about 14.5%, the WTO said. It reduces “time needed to import and export goods” and helps “expedite the movement, release and clearance of goods across borders.” As the TFA’s implementation rate increased, WTO members have shared information to help traders within the agreement understand varying import, export and transit procedures and the use of customs brokers, single windows and customs contact points, the WTO said.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative released an extensive critique of the appellate body at the World Trade Organization. But the administration offered no proposals for what other countries could do to satisfy it so that it would allow the appellate body to be rejuvenated. Currently, there is no quorum for the body, so it cannot hear appeals. Many of the complaints are about how the WTO has ruled on antidumping and countervailing duty cases in the U.S. -- the report mentions “zeroing,” a method used in antidumping, nearly 100 times. The report said, “The United States is publishing this Report -- the first comprehensive study of the Appellate Body’s failure to comply with WTO rules and interpret WTO agreements as written -- to examine and explain the problem, not dictate solutions.”

Japan, Australia and Singapore and 80 other World Trade Organization members agreed to develop a “consolidated negotiating text” for WTO e-commerce negotiations by the next WTO conference in June, according to a joint press release. The plan was agreed to during a Jan. 24 informal meeting on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, where they said “good progress” has been made during the first year of negotiations. Members said the negotiations will address e-commerce trade challenges faced by developing countries and small to medium-sized businesses.

A group of 17 World Trade Organization members announced plans for an interim appeals process to settle disputes between members, according to a Jan. 24 joint statement. The members, including the European Union and China but not the U.S., said they will put in place “contingency measures” to allow for appeals of WTO panel reports “in disputes among ourselves.” The system would only be in place until a reformed WTO appellate body “becomes fully operational,” the statement said.

The ideal of free trade has been imperiled by politicians' inaction in the face of harm by foreign competition, said panelists at a Davos forum on free trade. Roberto Azevedo, director-general of the World Trade Organization, said that free trade is associated with economic growth -- but prosperity also increases the gap between rich and poor. When disparities grow, he said, the answer is not to grow, but to avoid inequality. “The problem is governments are often MIA. They are missing in action. They are seeing inequalities grow, and they do nothing about it,” he said, until there is political upheaval. He said politicians don't consider the economic realities as much as the desire of voters. “An easy answer in the age of disruption is to blame the foreign,” he said. “Imports is an easy target, so why not?”

President Donald Trump, speaking at a press conference in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 22, said he'll be talking with World Trade Organization Director-General Roberto Azevedo in Washington on “a whole new structure” for the WTO. “Roberto and I ... are going to do something that I think will be very dramatic,“ he said. Trump said Azevedo and others in his delegation will come to Washington “sometime next week or the week after, and we'll start working on it.”

The U.S. delegation to the World Trade Organization rejected a proposal from countries on how to reform the appellate body (see 1912090031), saying that without understanding how the appellate body's overreach problem developed, there's no reason to believe that restating the constraints on the appellate body's authority will work. In December, when the appellate body ceased to exist because of U.S. refusal to allow new appointees, the National Foreign Trade Council hired Tailwinds Global Strategy's Bruce Hirsh to put forward ideas of how to resolve the impasse

The World Trade Organization may have its first answer to what happens when a party appeals and there's no appellate body to resolve the dispute. The U.S., which killed the appellate body by not agreeing to appoint any replacements, is appealing a compliance report for a case in which India won the argument that the U.S. antidumping and countervailing case against Indian steel didn't fully follow trade law (see 14081205 and 1706090021).

World Trade Organization members should take several steps to resolve the WTO’s dispute settlement system “crisis” (see 1912090031), including better enforcement of the 90-day time frame for appeals and prohibitions on advisory opinions, according to a report by Bruce Hirsch of Tailwind Global Strategies and commissioned by the National Foreign Trade Council that was released Dec. 17. WTO members should also consider issuing guidance on Articles 3.2 and 19.2 of the Dispute Settlement Understanding to clarify that it “does not justify expanding or narrowing the reach of WTO provisions or filling gaps.” In addition, “customary rules of interpretation of public international law” should “not justify gap-filling and expanding or narrowing the reach of WTO provisions,” the report said, and members should better address disagreements surrounding the appellate body’s findings on antidumping issues. Lastly, members should direct the body to “reject party arguments that expand or narrow the reach of agreement provisions or fill gaps in agreements.”