Chair’s draft pushes WTO farm talks deadlines back to next conference

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‘Mission impossible’ and ‘mission essential’ collide in WTO farm talks

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WTO ministers’ meeting — no interaction, no movement, just speeches
Texts: state of play in WTO farm talks and the crisis-meeting invitation
and all stories on this topic (tagged “food stockholding”)

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UPDATE: The draft prepared for the February 26–29, 2024 Ministerial Conference was circulated on February 16. It still pushed the deadlines back to the next conference, but with options throughout: members “shall” agree by then or they “agree to work towards” the target.

The deadlock remained over whether price support in food security stockpiling (PSH) should be a stand-alone decision at this conference or resolved with all the other topics by the next one.

See the full update below

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Posted by Peter Ungphakorn
FEBRUARY 5, 2024 | UPDATED FEBRUARY 18, 2024

World Trade Organization agriculture negotiators are spending the first two weeks of February scrutinising a draft text for the WTO’s upcoming Ministerial Conference.

In a meeting on January 30, 2024 they accepted the draft as the document to work on for the February 26–29 conference in Abu Dhabi — the WTO’s 13th Ministerial Conference, called “MC13” by insiders.

It was prepared by the talks’ chair, Ambassador Alparslan Acarsoy of Türkiye.

The 5-page draft is detailed, but for most issues it postpones any resolution until the Ministerial Conference after Abu Dhabi — “MC14” — normally within two years.

However, one issue still threatens to sink the whole effort. This is about finding a long-term solution for the present short term fix for over-the-limit subsidies used to buy into food security stocks (explained here).

Members disagree on whether this should be a single-issue decision or part of a package covering the whole of domestic support. (More below.)

A WTO website news story summarises its content in detail.

Chair issues new draft before final fisheries subsidies month

See also:
Updates, timeline and links | all articles tagged “fisheries subsidies”
Technical note on subsidies for fisheries

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By Peter Ungphakorn
POSTED JANUARY 2, 2024 | UPDATED JANUARY 13, 2024

A new draft and explanatory note on the Fisheries Subsidies Agreement’s “missing piece” was circulated to members on December 21, 2023, the World Trade Organization’s final working day of the year.

The chair, Ambassador Einar Gunnarsson of Iceland, has given WTO members four weeks from January 15 to February 9, 2024 to try to agree on a final version, which they would submit to the February 26–29 Ministerial Conference in Abu Dhabi.

SUMMARY

Too long, don’t want to read? If you just want the essence, stick with this SUMMARY section, which is about 15 short paragraphs. Continue beyond that if you want the DETAILS. Right at the end are the full texts. This article is long because a lot remains to be sorted out. The chair’s explanation is a seven-page document.

UPCOMING KEY FISH DATES
Over the New Year — Some consultations possible, but generally a break
January 15–February 9 — “fish month” of intensive talks
February 14 — final General Council meeting before the Ministerial Conference
February 15–25 — delegations’ preparations: coordinating with capitals and ministers, travelling to Abu Dhabi
February 26–29 — Ministerial Conference

For the first time since he floated a trial text in September, Gunnarsson released this version publicly.

The chair’s draft and his accompanying explanation are reproduced side by side below. An explanation of the details is also below. (The original pdf format of the draft is here and the accompanying explanation is here).

The chair’s detailed explanation shows that differences still have to be bridged throughout the text, although it remains to be seen where countries’ real red lines are, and whether they can compromise at the last minute. In 2022 they still couldn’t, 21 years after the talks were launched.

What’s left to resolve in WTO fisheries subsidies talks after deadline missed

See also:
No WTO fisheries subsidies text this year, negotiations chair concedes
Chair’s new draft starts text-based rush for fish subsidies’ ‘missing piece’
Updates, timeline and links | all articles tagged “fisheries subsidies”
Technical note on subsidies for fisheries

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By Peter Ungphakorn
POSTED DECEMBER 12, 2023 | UPDATED DECEMBER 13, 2023

The chair of the World Trade Organization’s fisheries subsidies negotiations and Iceland’s ambassador, Einar Gunnarsson, admitted on on December 8, 2023, that there would not be an agreed text by the end of the year, despite a commitment from senior officials six weeks earlier that there would.

He and WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told ambassadors at the end of the final “fish week” of the year that they still hoped that the differences could be settled by the Ministerial Conference in February next year — although the next talks are now not scheduled until mid-January.

They noted that delegates showed they were determined to reach agreement, and were encouraged by various proposed amendments to the chair’s September 4 draft designed to bridge the differences.

Texts on the table (details below) show that members diverge on a wide range of topics, particularly whether the biggest players should face extra scrutiny and if so how they would be identified, and the details of exemptions for developing countries.

WTO ministers’ meeting — no interaction, no movement, just speeches

SEE ALSO
Ministers preparing for WTO crisis meeting told they need to compromise and
Texts: state of play in WTO farm talks and the crisis-meeting invitation

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Posted by Peter Ungphakorn
DECEMBER 1, 2023 | UPDATED DECEMBER 5, 2023

The supposed “crisis” meeting of about 25 World Trade Organization ministers on November 28, 2023 showed no sign of breaking the deadlock in the WTO agriculture negotiations.

With barely two working months to go members now face the real risk of no outcome at all on agriculture at the February 2024 Ministerial Conference.

According to sources, the three-hour online meeting consisted only of a series of prepared statements echoing what delegations have been saying in the negotiations. No minister made any attempt even to edge towards compromise, even though they had been urged to do so before the meeting.

Nor did the chair attempt to encourage a dialogue, or to explore possible compromises. The presiding minister was UAE Foreign Trade Minister Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, who will chair the Abu Dhabi Ministerial Conference.

Friend-shoring risks drifting into a costly snow job

By Robert Wolfe*
POSTED JUNE 17, 2023 | UPDATED JUNE 17, 2023

One of the hottest topics in trade right now is the meaning of “security”, particularly as a broad set of exceptions to the international rules that normally constrain policy. It also pops up in another hot topic: how to handle environmental issues such as taxing carbon content, and subsidising favoured environmentally-friendly products.

This can be summed up in a question: have free trade and secure trade become conflicting aims?

The debate hit the headlines under the Trump administration in the US when “security” was used to justify raising trade barriers and providing subsidies to favoured sectors such as steel and agriculture. It seemed any economic setback, from having to import strategic materials to loss of export markets, could be seen as a security issue.

A ‘snow job’ is an attempt to persuade someone that something is good or true when it is not

The Biden administration has rephrased the objective: it’s now “worker-centred”. But the policies have not changed much.

One aspect of this is to try to shift supply chains back home, or failing that to favour off-shore chains in “friendly” countries — “friend-shoring”.

Unlikely video star outshines trade big-guns at WTO ministerial conference

By Peter Ungphakorn
POSTED JUNE 21, 2022 | UPDATED SEPTEMBER 16, 2022

The World Trade Organization’s Ministerial Conference ended two days late on Friday morning (June 17, 2022), the concluding session pushed back by stamina-draining and sometimes chaotic round-the-clock haggling, drafting and redrafting.

And yet this was supposed to be a streamlined meeting. The important-sounding “plenary sessions” were scrapped, replaced by pre-recorded videos so that ministers and their delegations wouldn’t have to pop out of sessions on real substance to talk platitudes to a near-empty room.

Touch and go at the WTO. Is the director-general’s optimism justified?

By Peter Ungphakorn and Robert Wolfe
POSTED JUNE 9, 2022 | UPDATED JUNE 12, 2022

How many times can a curtain go up and down? This is our second curtain-raiser for the World Trade Organization’s 12th Ministerial Conference, now rescheduled for June 12–15, 2022.

As we wrote when the meeting was postponed in late 2021, the WTO risks disappearing into a chasm of petty procedural wrangling over what to talk about, and how to move forward.

After delays in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic, and more recently the threat to multilateralism posed by Russia, the fact of it happening at all will be taken as a success. But have WTO members been able to move closer to significant agreement on anything?

This time our curtain-raiser proposes some benchmarks for assessment. There’s even a scorecard at the end for anyone following along at home.

Can a WTO member be expelled? No. But …

By Peter Ungphakorn
POSTED MARCH 23, 2022 | UPDATED MARCH 26, 2022

Can a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) be expelled? The short answer is no. There is no legal means of doing that.

The question arises because of a number of calls to expel Russia, to suspend its membership or to suspend its ability to act in the WTO, in response to its invasion of Ukraine.

Those three are not exactly the same. The first two — expulsion or suspending membership — are clearly legal issues. They require decisions by the WTO’s membership.

The response from almost all experts in WTO trade law is simple: there are no provisions in the WTO agreements that would allow expulsion or suspension.

Ukraine invasion—what Russia and Belarus face in the WTO system: so far

This blog post contains a list of actions that countries have taken against Russia and Belarus. It will now only be updated occasionally. The point was to examine how they work, where WTO decisions might be needed and the implications, and how they relate to WTO provisions such as non-discrimination (MFN) or the security exceptions. That should be clearer now.

See these sources for closer monitoring:

Global Trade Alert

A considerably longer list of sanctions announced against Russia is available at Global Trade Alert. Many are outside the WTO system. Some may be within the system, such as export restrictions on dual-use products and restrictions on shipping services (but not air traffic rights). Russia’s retaliation is here.

Global Trade Alert was originally set up by Simon Evenett and his team at St Gallen University, Switzerland. It is now run by an independent foundation.

PIIE

Chad Bown of the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) has created a timeline that tracks all the actions taken by various countries on all sides: Russia’s war on Ukraine: A sanctions timeline.

A number of other sources are available. This one (details paywalled) is Europe-centred.

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By Peter Ungphakorn
POSTED MARCH 4, 2022 | UPDATED MAY 10, 2022 (SEE ALSO ENTRY DATES)

This is a summary of actions taken or proposed so far against Russia within the WTO system. Some are also against Belarus, which is not a WTO member.

They are deliberately described as “within the WTO system” and not “in the WTO” — or worse “by the WTO” — to avoid confusion.

US politicians call for trade action against Russia in the WTO

Painting (detail) by Chris Edmund © used with permission

See also:
List of measures announced or proposed
that come under the WTO system, periodically updated
Can a WTO member be expelled? No. But …

By Peter Ungphakorn
POSTED FEBRUARY 28, 2022 | UPDATED MARCH 4, 2022

Two senior US politicians announced on February 25, 2022 that they were introducing legislation to suspend World Trade Organization terms in US trade with Russia and to seek expelling Russia from the WTO.

Lloyd Doggett, chair of the House of Representatives Ways and Means subcommittee on health, and Earl Blumenauer, his counterpart on the subcommittee on trade, proposed the bill following Russia’s “unprovoked invasion of Ukraine”.

Since then, at least three similar bills have been proposed in the US Senate.

Meanwhile, Ukraine and Canada have actually implemented action against Russia within in the WTO system, and the EU has said it is considering its own action.

The Doggett and Blumenauer bill would make it easier for the US to impose trade sanctions against imports of Russian goods, in addition to the commercial, financial and personal sanctions the US and its allies have already initiated. That includes new EU sanctions in trade with Belarus (not a WTO member).

The bill would also “seek the suspension of the Russian Federation’s membership in the WTO”, a more difficult prospect.