Following on the earlier "Germany Drafts Plan to Hit US Companies in Next Trump Clash".
From Politico.eu, March 25:
Nearly 40 nations are hatching a plan to save the World Trade Organization or, if it can’t be salvaged, to build a new order.
The middle powers that Canada’s Mark Carney rallied in Davos will face a test this week against the “rupture” in global trade opened by U.S. President Donald Trump.
The nearly 40 nations in the EU and Indo-Pacific CPTPP trade blocs are on a quest to save the World Trade Organization at a pivotal meeting in the African nation of Cameroon.
Six years ago, Trump crippled the global trade body’s dispute court. His administration is now pressuring members to change the WTO’s core principles to get tough on China as the White House’s tariffs openly flout the rules, damaging global trade.
Among other squabbles, the WTO, which operates by consensus, has seen its 166 members at odds over whether to make e-commerce and digital trade — including software, cloud services, and music and movie streaming — permanently tariff-free.
On the sidelines of the four-day showdown in Cameroon’s capital, Yaoundé, the EU and the 12-nation CPTPP bloc, which together represent nearly a third of the global economy, will hatch a plan Friday to keep the WTO on the rails.
Or, if it can’t be salvaged, “build a new order” as Carney urged in his address to the World Economic Forum.
“I think Canada has added a bit of oomph into this conversation since Mark Carney’s speech,” U.K. Trade Minister Chris Bryant told POLITICO ahead of the WTO’s 14th Ministerial Conference (MC14), where he is serving as a facilitator, guiding the multilateral reform talks.
Last month, Carney offered to “broker a bridge” between the EU and the fast-growing Indo-Pacific bloc — which comprises Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Peru, Chile, Mexico, Brunei, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia and, most recently, the U.K. — in the form of a new anti-Trump trade pact that also aims to reform the WTO.
It’s possible the WTO “could become the organization that it really, really wants to be, which is able to make decisions and take things forward,” Bryant said.
A bellwether is the future of the so-called e-commerce moratorium, after the 2024 Dubai ministerial kicked the final decision about barring nations from slapping tariffs on digital trade into this year.
“We prefer to make it permanent,” Bryant said, pointing to a joint statement by the EU and Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) nations.
By our powers combined (Plan A)
Trade ministers from the EU and CPTPP nations are readying a new joint statement on WTO reform to deploy at MC14 this week, according to two diplomats — one from a CPTPP member and the other from the EU.It will “almost certainly” contain something on e-commerce, said the CPTPP nation diplomat, noting it’s not yet finalized and discussions about its contents are ongoing....
....MUCH MORE
Related, Sunday, March 29:
Flashback: Let's Face It, When You Reap The Rewards Of Money And Power, You Want To Keep The Money And Power Flowing
