WTO deals still within sight after all-night arm-twisting

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By Editor_1
The global trade body's 164 members added on an extra fifth day of talks to try to break the deadlock at the WTO headquarters in Geneva  - Fabrice COFFRINI/AFP
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By Robin Millard

GENEVA – World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations dragged on Thursday (16) after countries haggled through the night in frantic efforts to salvage deals on food security, fishing and combating COVID-19.

Ministers were trading concessions with just hours to go before the scheduled closing ceremony at the WTO’s first conference in nearly five years.

The global trade body’s 164 members added on an extra fifth day of talks to try to break the deadlock at the WTO headquarters in Geneva – and emerge with deals that would prove the organization still has a role to play in tackling big global challenges.

But despite ploughing on beyond their original Wednesday (15) deadline, countries were still trading concessions early Thursday.

“The negotiations have been going on all night and they are still going on. And we are still optimistic that we can have some really positive outcomes,” New Zealand’s trade minister Damien O’Connor told AFP.

“There is a lot of commitment to try and move things forward and it’s encouraging.

“We have seen a huge amount of flexibility from all parties, in a spirit of cooperation. Of course, there’ll be some issues that are hard to resolve.”

Ministers have been trying to secure deals on curbing harmful fishing subsidies; a temporary waiver on COVID-19 vaccine patents; food security; agriculture; e-commerce; the WTO’s response to pandemics; and reform of the organization itself.

The global trade body only takes decisions by consensus among all its members, making deals all the harder to hammer out.

Countries hit a brick wall late Wednesday trying to secure each separate deal on its own merits, so they spent the night making tit-for-tat offers in an attempt to keep them all afloat.

“They’re looking at a broad package: what can be achieved, trade-offs in different areas,” a Geneva trade official told reporters.

“We’re into the real bargaining part of the meeting. This is where all the action is happening.”

US Trade Representative Katherine Tai, Britain’s Geneva ambassador Simon Manley and Australia’s WTO representative George Mina all tweeted pictures of first light emerging over Lake Geneva, taken from the WTO HQ’s terrace.

Giant trays of sandwiches kept delegates going through the night after they drank the building dry of fruit juice.

WTO chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who took over in March 2021, has hinged her leadership on breathing new life into the sclerotic organization.

The last WTO ministerial conference, in December 2017 in Buenos Aires, was widely considered a flop, closing without a major agreement and Okonjo-Iweala wants no repeat.

The former foreign and finance minister of Nigeria was hoping to pull off a coup by securing a long-sought deal on curbing harmful fishing subsidies.

Negotiations towards banning subsidies that encourage overfishing and threaten the sustainability of the planet’s fish stocks have been going on at the WTO for more than two decades.

India was pushing for a 25-year exemption — far longer than many countries are comfortable with.

Some diplomats have been pointing the finger at India for being intransigent on subsidies — and every dossier being thrashed out at the WTO.

“India has always been a reluctant trading partner,” said Harsh V. Pant, an international relations professor at King’s College London university’s India Institute.

“India feels that it has more room today than it had in the past. It has a greater future potential and feels that it is in a geopolitical sweet spot where everyone wants to befriend it — and it can use that as leverage,” he told AFP.

Ministers have been arguing over whether to extend the moratorium on imposing customs duties on electronic transactions, in place since 1998.

But India and South Africa say it has a negative impact, with Pakistan, Indonesia and Sri Lanka also sceptical.

But Nigeria told a meeting that non-renewal would mean the WTO was “not responsive to the challenges of the 21st century”, and South Korea said it should be the “minimum commitment” to emerge from the conference, according to a Geneva trade official.

The United States said the moratorium had supported the growth of digital commerce, which had provided an “economic lifeline” during the Covid-19 pandemic, with Washington insisting that new trade barriers had to be avoided, the official said.

-Agence France-Presse

 

 

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