Dampened by US criticism, WTO ends with no substantial agreements

A World Trade Organization conference dampened from the start by criticism from the United States ended Wednesday without any substantial agreements.

The ministerial-level meeting that wrapped up in Argentina's capital addressed trade issues involving food and agriculture, e-commerce, development and fisheries subsidies.

"Members did not manage to agree on final substantive agreements this time," WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo said at the closing ceremony.

"It's not every time that ministers meet that they're going to be to be able to strike deals of the magnitude of what we achieved in Bali and Nairobi, but that doesn't diminish the disappointment that we feel."

The 164-nation WTO, which works to bring down trade barriers and resolve disputes, needs the agreement of all members to reach agreements.

"There was a political decision by some members who had a position against integrated trade. This put us in a turning point. It brought us to a cross point. That did not happen during our previous meeting in Nairobi," said the chairwoman of the conference, former Argentine Foreign Minister Susana Malcorra.

Failure to strike any big deals

The failure to strike any big deals in Buenos Aires and the lack of US leadership, which has left a power vacuum, highlighted uncertainty at the trade organization.

The stalemate dashed hopes for new deals on e-commerce and curbs to farm and fisheries subsidies and raised questions about the body's ability to govern increasingly disputed global trade.

"We have not achieved any multilateral outcomes," European Union Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom told a news conference. "The sad reality is that we did not even agree to stop subsidizing illegal fishing."

She said the meeting laid bare one of the WTO's biggest deficiencies - that all agreements must have the unanimous consent of all 164 member countries. She said the US was partly to blame but that other countries also blocked progress.

The failure to agree on new deals means that talks on the same trade topics will continue. WTO delegates agreed to set a new goal for a reaching a comprehensive fisheries subsidy by the time of the next ministerial conference in 2019.

Trade ministers instead emphasized the WTO's post-conference work programs, such as efforts to improve market efficiency, curb excess industrial capacity and improve subsidy transparency.

Plurilateral agreements as solution

Malmstrom said "short-term plurilateral arrangements within the WTO framework" were the best way forward. Two such arrangements came together at the Buenos Aires conference.

On Wednesday, some 70 members, including the US, EU and Japan, pledged to forge ahead with negotiating rules on electronic commerce after a broader deal among the full membership failed. Absent from the group were China, India, Vietnam and Indonesia.

The EU and Japan joined the US on Tuesday in vowing to combat market-distorting policies, such as those pervasive in China that have fueled excess industrial capacity, including subsidies for state-owned enterprises and technology transfer requirements.

The WTO conference's chair Malcorra, defended the WTO's need for unanimity among its large and unruly membership, saying it was the still the best forum to deal with trade disputes.

"Let's better work to strengthen WTO, because the alternative is the jungle," she said.

Meeting began on sour note

The meeting in Buenos Aires began on a sour note on Monday, when US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said that the WTO is losing its focus on trade negotiations and "becoming a litigation-centered organization." 

Lighthizer setting an acrimonious tone with sharp criticism of the WTO, telling ministers that it was impossible to negotiate new rules while many of the current rules were not being followed, and that the WTO was losing its focus and becoming too litigation-focused.

He also complained that some WTO members try to gain concessions through lawsuits that he said they could never get at the negotiating table. 

"There wasn't a sole element. There were several situations. In most negotiations you can't attribute success or failure in negotiations to one side," he told reporters.

The US has long been a top WTO advocate, but Trump has said the US has not been treated fairly by the WTO and he has scaled back US leadership in the trade body. The effects seemed to have caused aftershocks at the meeting in Argentina, although Azevedo said no single reason could be attributed to the meeting's lack of results.

Driven by Trump's "America First" strategy and a preference for bilateral deals, the US had pushed against ministers drafting a perfunctory ministerial that included references to the centrality of the global trading system and to trade as a driver of development. The statement was ultimately blocked.

Concerns over Trump administration

Earlier this year, China and Taiwan joined other US allies including Israel at the WTO headquarters in Switzerland to express concerns over the Trump administration executive order that seeks to maximize use of American-made goods, products and materials in government procurement.

The 10 WTO members, also including the EU, Canada and Japan, also urged Washington to continue honoring the trade body's "Government Procurement Agreement" adopted by Washington and 45 other countries — mostly EU states — that aims to promote fair, free access to government contracts.

From the start, there were low expectations about what could be achieved at the biennial conference in Buenos Aires. But the failure to deliver any multilateral outcomes after three days of meeting still disappointed many.