San Francisco Frontiers - US in the spotlight at WTO meet

In the corridors of the WTO gathering in Cameroon's capital Yaounde, which runs until Sunday, a lot of the talk is about the United States.

"The Americans are highly awaited; without them, we can't move forward," confided one delegate from a Southeast Asian country, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"The other members primarily expect the United States to clarify its intentions, and are asking it to demonstrate its continued commitment to the WTO through concrete actions," Sebastien Jean, an associate director at the French Institute of International Relations think-tank, told AFP.

Yaounde marks the WTO's first ministerial conference since US President Donald Trump returned to the White House last year, unleashing a barrage of attacks on multilateralism and WTO rules with sweeping tariffs and bilateral trade deals, violating WTO rules along the way, according to many experts.

Trump has made tariffs a central instrument of his economic and foreign policy.

"US trade policy measures are a corrective response to a trading system, embodied by the WTO, that has overseen and contributed to severe and sustained imbalances," US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Wednesday.

Under successive presidents, Washington is also accused of blocking the appointment of judges to the WTO's Appellate Body -- a mechanism for resolving trade disputes between countries -- which has been paralysed since late 2019.

Many observers, however, are pleased that the United States has not quit the WTO, thus avoiding major upheaval in the international trading system.

- 'Ultimatum' -

The US position, however, seems rigid. Washington has issued two documents, the latest on Monday, on reforming the WTO, contesting some of its fundamental rules.

"The US is setting down an ultimatum, and that ultimatum is that the current global order no longer suits the objectives" of the White House, said Jane Kelsey, a law specialist from the University of Auckland, who came to the conference with a coalition of NGOs, experts and activists.

"And the US threatens to relegate the organisation to even greater irrelevance if it doesn't get what it wants," she told AFP.

"So that kind of threat is hovering over this ministerial."

A chief US demand is revision of the WTO's fundamental "most favoured nation" principle, which aims to extend any trade advantage granted to one country to all trade partners.

This system directly contradicts Trump's approach to trade.

The United States also wants the WTO to establish criteria to determine whether a country should be considered as developing, given that such countries benefit from certain advantages in the way rules are applied.

Here, Washington is targeting China, which despite its economic heft is classified as a developing country at the WTO.

- Uncertainty in the air -

The United States also wants measures encouraging countries to be more open in reporting subsidies.

WTO members are required to do so, but again, Western countries accuse Beijing of lacking transparency.

Like many other members, the United States is also calling for the development of plurilateral agreements within the WTO, something India categorically rejects, preferring to stick with the current full consensus system.

Washington is also demanding that WTO rules do not infringe upon countries' national "security".

This demand is being met with resistance, as other countries think the concept remains vague when it comes to justifying, for example, additional tariffs.

But according to Sebastien Jean, "great uncertainty remains" about what the United States is seeking at the WTO.

"Is it reform to improve its functioning, or is it disorganisation, or even lasting paralysis?

"Recent statements by Jamison Greer suggest that they wouldn't mind prolonging the uncertainty and paralysis" when it comes to institutional reform, he said.

"This could lead them to make very minimal concessions, on procedural points or on very specific issues."

P.Thomas--SFF