Eleventh Hour for WTO Reform

James BacchusThe next ministerial conference of the World Trade Organization, scheduled for June in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, may be the last chance for the WTO to reclaim its central role in the multilateral trading system. With all too few successes in the 21st century about which to boast, WTO members must prove anew there that they can negotiate new rules and put them into effect. To improve their prospects for success in Kazakhstan, they must agree now on the issues most likely to have chances to generate consensus by June and pursue negotiations on those issues immediately.In the countdown to Kazakhstan, five issues seem most ripe for negotiating success. Those issues, as I argue in a new paper titled "Reviving the WTO: Five Priorities for Liberalization" released today by the Cato Institute, are free trade in medical goods, free trade in environmental goods, new disciplines on fisheries subsidies, investment facilitation, and digital trade. These should be considered the five first pieces of WTO reform.First, the COVID-19 pandemic has made clear the interdependence of countries for medicines and medical supplies, revealing the wisdom of a free trade agreement in medical goods. Even before the pandemic struck, the average bound tariff on medical products for all WTO members was 26 percent, with some tariffs as high as 65 percent. The intense pressures of the pandemic resulted in the imposition of new trade restrictions; at least 75 national governments imposed restricted ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs