San Francisco Frontiers - WTO reform talks coming to the crunch

Reforming the beleaguered global trade body is at the heart of the WTO's four-day ministerial conference -- its main decision-taking event that typically takes place every two years.

The 166-member WTO struggles to reach agreements due to the requirement for consensus, prompting questions over its central role in regulating international trade.

Norway's ambassador to the WTO Petter Olberg, who is facilitating the reform talks, is trying to secure agreement on a way through the logjam before talks close Sunday.

But countries have differing views on how ambitious the reform should be and how to implement it.

The United States has previously indicated it would reject the draft text.

Still, Olberg told AFP and Switzerland's Keystone-ATS news agency on Friday that he was "reasonably optimistic".

- 'Like speed-dating' -

Also on the agenda is renewing the moratorium on customs duties on e-commerce, which is due to expire on March 31, and agreements on agriculture and facilitating investment for development.

"I remain really quite optimistic about the potential for progress," British Business and Trade Secretary Peter Kyle told reporters.

"This process is ongoing, and when you're in the rooms upstairs, it's a bit like speed-dating. There's a lot of darting around between rooms."

But trade negotiations have long stalled, and its trade dispute settlement system has been paralysed since 2019 by Washington's refusal to appoint judges to the appeals body.

The US has made no secret of its intent to shake up the multilateral trading system.

"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 attacks on multilateralism and WTO rules with sweeping tariffs and bilateral trade deals.

- 'Outright bullying' -

Ivan Enrile, with Philippine's based NGO IBON International, denounced Washington's seeming desire to "discard even the tiniest pretence of multilateralism, replacing it with coercion, powerplay, and outright bullying".

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

Melanie Foley, a deputy director at the US think-tank Public Citizen, said: "Trump attempts to score political points domestically with his chaotic attacks on the global trading system."

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.

O.Anderson--SFF