Trade conflicts deepen at WTO meeting - World Socialist Web Site
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Trade conflicts deepen at WTO meeting
By Nick Beams
18 December 2017
A three-day meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, last week, barely received any media coverage. Nonetheless, it was very significant for it revealed the deepening divisions wracking the global trading system.
The eleventh ministerial meeting of the 164-member international trade organisation concluded without any final statement because of US intransigence over its wording. In fact, attempts to draft such a statement were abandoned last month when the US insisted on removing longstanding references to the role of the multilateral system in the world economy.
Under its “America First” agenda, the Trump administration has criticised the operations of the WTO for acting in ways inimical to the US and accused its disputes-settling procedures of creatively interpreting trade rules rather than applying them. In the lead-up to the meeting, US officials reportedly wanted language to be included in the final statement to prevent the WTO’s appellate body, which decides on trade disputes, from violating the “sovereignty” of its members.