Canada is working on a project for reform of the WTO and aims to organize international talks on the subject next month, Canadian sources said on Friday as US pressure on the body mounts.
US President Donald Trump late last month said he might pull his country out of the WTO, which arbitrates trade disputes, if it does not “shape up.”
He has previously criticized the WTO’s dispute settlement system as being unfavorable to the US.
“We recognize the challenges at the heart of the WTO and believe it is necessary to find the means to do the necessary work to advance reforms,” a spokesman for Canadian Minister of International Trade Diversification Jim Carr told reporters.
“This work has started,” the spokesman said, adding that “the WTO can overcome some of its historic challenges and make progress.”
A group of trade ministers are to gather in Ottawa on Oct. 24 and Oct. 25 “to discuss WTO reform,” a Canadian government source told reporters, requesting anonymity given the sensitivity of the discussions.
The group is to “identify concrete means of improving the WTO over the short, mid and long term,” the source said, adding that preparatory work had already begun.
Australia, Brazil, Chile, the EU, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, South Korea and Switzerland are to be part of the working group, the official said.
A European diplomatic source said the Ottawa gathering is “not totally confirmed,” because a meeting of trade ministers from the G20 was taking place, and Canada is still verifying whether it has enough support to steer WTO reform.
At a meeting in Argentina on Friday, the G20 trade and investment ministers said there was an “urgent need to discuss current events in international trade and ways to improve the WTO to face current and future challenges,” a communique said.
In July, Trump won a commitment from visiting European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker to work together for WTO readjustment to address some of the US leader’s complaints about China over the theft of US technology, the behavior of state-owned enterprises and overcapacity in steel.
Trump in April said on Twitter that the WTO considers China a developing nation, despite its economic might.
“They therefore get tremendous perks and advantages, especially over the US,” he said. “The WTO is unfair to US.”
WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo has agreed with a call from French President Emmanuel Macron “on the need to strengthen the WTO and to make it more effective in addressing the trade challenges of today,” as the US imposes tariffs and trade disputes multiply.
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