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TWN
Info Service on WTO and Trade Issues (Apr24/10) Geneva, 12 Apr (D. Ravi Kanth) — As members of the World Trade Organization conclude the 30th anniversary of the foundational Marrakesh Agreement this month, everything seems to be eclipsed from its original goals, with the two dominant members – the United States and the European Union – driving the trade body according to their new priorities. From a spate of recent developments that are rapidly chipping away at the margins of the Marrakesh Agreement, its 30th anniversary is increasingly becoming one of the proverbial “darkness at noon”. With the WTO’s enforcement function, which is enshrined in the Marrakesh Agreement, being made partially dysfunctional, and with the rules being allegedly openly flouted to advance plurilateral outcomes, it appears moot whether members are unwittingly in the process of bidding farewell to what was hailed as a watershed moment in establishing the multilateral trade rules. On 5 April, the United States and the European Union concluded a high-level meeting on Trade and Technology that suggests an enhanced understanding on several issues concerning trade and technology, while “soft-pedalling long-standing areas of disagreement,” according to a news report in Washington Trade Daily on 8 April. There seems to be a growing wiliness between the trans-Atlantic trade giants that appear to be caught in a quagmire of challenges. It is an open secret that the initiatives of the US-EU are primarily targeted to contain China that has become a global hub for solar panels, electric vehicle (EV) batteries, 5th generation telecommunication technologies, and even Artificial Intelligence (AI). Without mentioning China by name, the joint statement issued by the US-EU Trade and Technology Council (TTC) at the end of their sixth meeting last week says that “there has been a buildup of global economic pressure through extensive non-market policies and practices.” “This accentuates excessive and possibly high-risk dependencies of strategic supplies, tilts the level playing field, and poses a threat to our economic security, our prosperity, and the well-being of our firms, workers, and citizens,” the statement noted, against the backdrop of the concerns raised by the US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen during her visit to Beijing last week. After adopting a unilateral boycott of 5G wireless telecommunications network equipment developed by the Chinese company Huawei on security grounds, the US and the EU raised the bar of cooperation to establish “joint leadership and continue robust coordination on our approaches for creating rules of the road for emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), quantum technologies, and 6G wireless communication systems.” TRADE & CLIMATE CHANGE On the trade front, the US and the EU want to “strengthen our economic and trade ties, accelerate the transition to climate-neutral economies, and boost our economic security.” “With the Transatlantic Initiative on Sustainable Trade (TIST),” the US and the EU argued, the “TTC is contributing to the creation of a stronger, more sustainable, and more resilient transatlantic marketplace and facilitating environmentally responsible trade in goods and technologies.” In an attempt to keep several countries, particularly China, out of access to new digital trade tools, the joint statement of the US and the EU said: “We have increased cooperation on interoperability of digital trade tools as well as standardisation of critical and emerging technologies to reduce the costs of trading across the Atlantic.” The two trade majors said: “To boost our economic security, we continue to cooperate through the TTC to diversify strategic supply chains, including solar panels, semiconductors, and critical raw materials, and to reduce vulnerabilities, including those caused by other countries’ non-market policies and practices. We have also deepened our dialogue and cooperation on export controls and investment screening.” Despite such pronouncements by the US and the EU last week, the WTO’s Director-General, Ms Ngozi Okonjo- Iweala, in her remarks during the launch of the WTO’s latest global trade outlook on 10 April, touted “resilient supply chains and a solid multilateral trading framework.” With the alleged attempts to intensify fragmentation of the global trading system, the US and the EU vowed “to use the TTC to advance the governance of critical and emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, semiconductors, biotechnology, and online platforms, including by supporting the development of rights-respecting international technical standards, codes of conduct, principles, and guidance.” KEY US-EU OUTCOMES The “key outcomes of the sixth TTC ministerial meeting” in Brussels last week include: * Advancing Transatlantic Leadership on Critical and Emerging Technologies in areas of Artificial Intelligence; “Quantum Task Force” for further collaboration in frontier sciences; “the Road to 6G (sixth generation of wireless telecommunications)”; “Semiconductors”; “Biotechnology Cooperation to Promote the Bioeconomy and Address Global Challenges”. * Promoting Sustainability and New Opportunities for Trade and Investment that include (a) Transatlantic Initiative on Sustainable Trade; (b) Building a Transatlantic Green Marketplace; ( c) Green Public Procurement; (d) Secure and Sustainable Supply Chains for the Clean Energy Transition; (e) US-EU Clean Energy Incentives Dialogue; (f) Critical Minerals; (g) Transatlantic E-Mobility Cooperation; (h) Trade and Labour in the Green Transition. * Trade, Security, and Economic Prosperity that includes issues such as (1) Trade for Economic Security; (2) Cooperation on Export Controls and Sanction-Related Export Restrictions; (3) Investment Screening; (4) Outbound Investment Security; (5) Addressing Non-Market Policies and Practices. In short, it appears that the US and the EU are embarking on a new international trade order sans China. This could mark a new beginning in reshaping the WTO’s Marrakesh Agreement. +
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