One of the two finalists for the director-general position at the World Trade Organization said Oct. 20 that when trade ministers gather for the next ministerial -- which may happen in June next year -- they should agree on a process for reforming the dispute settlement system. That suggests there will be no binding dispute resolution for at least two years at the WTO, if not longer.
A former negotiator on the phase one China deal, Clete Willems, said his goal in publishing a report on how to reform the World Trade Organization is to move the conversation beyond how to restore the status quo in Geneva.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala of Nigeria and Yoo Myung-hee of the Republic of Korea are the two finalists for director-general at the World Trade Organization, the WTO announced Oct. 8. Both are women, so either would be the first woman to lead the organization. Okonjo-Iweala, a long-time development economist and former finance and foreign minister in Nigeria, has not been a trade negotiator (see 2007210040). Yoo is South Korea's trade minister, and was involved in the renegotiation of the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement during the Trump administration.
The long-awaited World Trade Organization decision on how much in tariffs the European Union can use to retaliate for Boeing subsidies has been sent to the parties, Reuters is reporting, and that amount is $4 billion worth of goods. Reuters said the EU is unlikely to impose tariffs before the U.S. election in November.
Trade ministers from the G-20 nations said they will continue to support reform of the World Trade Organization and restoration of a functioning dispute settlement system, and that they recognize how important it is that any trade measures related to COVID-19 are “targeted, proportionate, transparent [and] temporary,” and don't create unnecessary disruption to global supply chains. The statement was released Sept. 22, at the end of a virtual G-20 summit.
Liam Fox, from the United Kingdom; Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala from Nigeria; Yoo Myung-hee from Korea; Amina C. Mohamed from Kenya; and Mohammad Maziad Al-Tuwaijri from Saudi Arabia are the candidates still in the running for the director-general position at the World Trade Organization, after the first round of winnowing. The second round of winnowing will be done with member states from Sept. 24 to Oct. 6. The second round will narrow the list to two candidates. After this, the timeline for the third round, to select the one candidate by consensus, will be announced.
A new World Trade Organization dispute settlement panel report said that the U.S. improperly applied Section 301 tariffs on goods from China. “It remains to be seen whether the US decides to appeal the ruling,” former WTO official Peter Ungphakorn said in a tweet. “Since the Appellate Body cannot function, this would be an 'appeal into the void.'” The WTO appeals court is mostly inoperable due to a U.S. hold on adding new members.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Japan's Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Mogi talked about the necessity of dispute settlement reform at the World Trade Organization, Japan said in an Aug. 26 press release, according to an unofficial translation. The release emphasized that the U.S. initiated the call, and said the need for reform is becoming more urgent.
During the monthly Dispute Settlement Body meeting at the World Trade Organization, the European Union said it adopted “additional and extraordinary” compliance measures by withdrawing all the remaining subsidies for Airbus on Aug. 21, and they said that was “substantially in excess” of what's required by the WTO rules. They said they did this in order to convince the U.S. to withdraw its tariffs on European goods, and with the intention that they would not impose tariffs over Boeing subsidies, after a negotiated settlement. “It is not in the interests of anyone that the European Union and the United States now proceed to, or continue, mutually assured retaliation, and certainly not in the current economic climate,” they said.
Moldova's Tudor Ulianovschi told the Washington International Trade Association that the fact that he's coming from a neutral country is an advantage in his candidacy for director-general of the World Trade Organization. Ulianovschi, who was speaking Aug. 26 on a WITA webinar, served as foreign minister of Moldova in 2018 and 2019, and during that time Moldova became a member of the WTO government procurement agreement.