WTO: Daunting challenges await WTO chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigerian economist and former finance minister, has been appointed to head the World Trade Organization, becoming the first African and woman to helm the global trade body.

Okonjo-Iweala takes over as the global trade body struggles to remain relevant amid growing protectionism and trade tensions and an economic crisis unleashed by the coronavirus pandemic.

From reviving WTO's dispute settlement process to policing China, the new director-general has her task cut out as she looks to restore global faith in the trade body.

Reas more at: Daunting challenges await WTO chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala | Business| Economy and finance news from a German perspective | DW | 16.02.2021

WTO: EU to give themselves new powers after WTO deadlock

Brussels might soon be able to bypass the US-crippled WTO to impose punitive tariffs on trade partners. The EU cannot afford to be "defenseless", said the bloc's trade commissioner Phil Hogan.

Read more at: 
https://www.dw.com/en/eu-to-give-themselves-new-powers-after-wto-deadlock/a-51646530

WTO: Canada urges U.S. to save WTO from chaos " brought on by the US Trump Administration"

The global trading system that took decades to build is days away from disarray as the U.S. appears keen to paralyze the World Trade Organization's enforcement system.

Read more at:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/canada-urges-u-s-to-save-wto-from-chaos-1.5369843

EU-US Trade War: A flood of new data from the US and eurozone suggests recession risks are flashing red. Here's a full rundown of the wreckage - by Ben Winck

Key economic metrics are flashing red for the US and the European Union as tensions between the two reach new highs.

The latest readings from prominent purchasing managers' indexes show manufacturing sectors the US and EU struggling amid global trade conflict and slowing economies. Service and non-manufacturing industries also slowed through September in both areas.

The negative signs arrive after the WTO granted the US permission to levy $7.5 billion in tariffs on EU imports, specifically targeting Boeing competitor Airbus.

Further escalation of trade conflict between the bloc and the US could plunge the two economies into deeper economic woes.

Read more at: A flood of new data from the US and eurozone suggests recession risks are flashing red. Here's a full rundown of the wreckage. | Markets Insider

EU-US Relations: Huge trade tariffs on Europe could come soon if US wins WTO fight - by David Reid

The World Trade Organization (WTO) has found that both European planemaker Airbus (AIR.PA) and its U.S. rival Boeing (BA.N) received billions of dollars of illegal subsidies in a pair of cases that have run for 15 years.

Both sides have threatened tariffs after the Geneva body found neither adhered fully to its findings. However, the United States has a head start, with the European Union having to wait until early in 2020 to hear what level of retaliation it can exact over Boeing.

The WTO is expected this week to reveal the amount of EU goods the United States can target. People familiar with the case say the three-person tribunal is expected to award it around $7.5 billion, a record for the 24-year-old watchdog.

Such retaliation rights are rarely granted by the WTO - most parties reach settlements - and in many cases complainants do not exercise their rights. The United States though has indicated it will target EU goods to the fullest extent.

It has already published a $25 billion list from which it will pick items to target from aircraft and aerospace parts to wine, cheese and luxury goods.

The WTO award in the world’s largest corporate trade dispute could fuel already strained trade tensions, diplomats say.

Read more at: Huge trade tariffs on Europe could come next week if US wins WTO fight

EU-US Relations - Tariffs: Trump rejects EU offer to scrap car tariffs – by Maxime Schlee

This is what "the US Consigliere" thinks about the EU

U.S. President Donald Trump said the EU’s offer to scrap tariffs on cars is “not good enough” because European consumers’ “habits are to buy their cars, not to buy our cars.”

In an interview with Bloomberg published Friday, Trump also said the EU “is almost as bad as China, just smaller.”

On Thursday, EU trade chief Cecilia Malmström told European Parliament’s trade committee that Brussels is willing to scrap tariffs on all industrial products, including cars, in its trade talks with the United States.

“We are willing to bring down even our car tariffs down to zero … if the U.S. does the same,” she said, adding that “it would be good for us economically, and for them.”

Trump also took aim at the World Trade Organization, telling Bloomberg: “If they don’t shape up, I would withdraw from the WTO,” adding that the agreement establishing the body is “the single worst trade deal ever made.”

The U.S. president said his country has “rarely won a lawsuit” in the WTO, “except for last year.”

Read more: Trump rejects EU offer to scrap car tariffs – POLITICO

WTO: Trump threatens to pull out of the World Trade Organisation.

- Via euronews: Trump threatens to pull out of World Trade Organisation

Read more at: 

http://www.euronews.com/2018/08/31/trump-threatens-to-pull-out-of-world-trade-organisation

EU-USA Relations: EU drags US to WTO over steel, aluminum tariffs

EU-US Relations turn sour

The European Union on Monday complained to the World Trade Organization over US tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.

The move comes despite US President Donald Trump temporarily exempting the 28-nation bloc from the tariffs that have threatened to trigger a trade war.

The EU made following statement in reference to their WTO complaint

• The EU rejects the "national security" justification for the US tariffs and believes they have been imposed just to protect US industry.
• It wants to hold consultations with the US as soon as possible.
• The aim of the discussions would be to "exchange views and seek clarification regarding the proposed measures."

Read more: EU drags US to WTO over steel, aluminum tariffs | News | DW | 16.04.2018

WTO upholds ruling against Washington’s tax reduction for Boeing - by Dominic Gates

The World Trade Organization (WTO) on Friday ruled that the U.S. has suitably addressed all but one piece of the European Union’s case alleging that Boeing receives illegal subsidies.

As the years-long legal process enters its final chapters, the lingering trouble lies in the biggest slice of Washington state’s aerospace tax incentives.

A WTO panel adjudicating U.S. compliance with previous rulings found that, while all other Boeing subsidies have been remedied, the state’s aerospace business tax rate reduction — worth about $800 million to Boeing since 2004 through last year — remains illegal and must still be fixed.

The ruling by the compliance panel is another legal step in an international trade dispute that has played out slowly over more than a decade: The U.S. sued the European Union in 2004 over Airbus
.
The U.S. will appeal Friday’s ruling and the appeal won’t be decided for about another year. Only then might Boeing have to consider what it can do to bring the Washington state tax subsidies into WTO compliance.

U.S. government and Boeing officials spun the outcome as a victory because the other 28 state and federal funding programs challenged as subsidies in the dispute, amounting to an alleged $10.4 billion in subsidies to Boeing, have been addressed and are now resolved.

Read more: WTO upholds ruling against Washington’s tax reduction for Boeing | The Seattle Times

WTO: Germany urges EU to file WTO complaint against U.S. in steel row - by Michael Nienaber

Germany urged the European Union on Friday to consider filing a complaint with the World Trade Organization (WTO) against the United States over its plan to impose duties on imports of steel plate from five EU member states.

U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to sign executive orders on Friday aimed at identifying abuses causing huge U.S. trade deficits. He is also preparing to meet Chinese President Xi next week in Florida, with contentious trade issues likely to be high on the agenda.

Global steel prices have slumped as Chinese producers, who account for about half of the worldwide steel supply, have flooded the export markets, leading to protests and anti-dumping complaints by the United States, the European Union and others.

On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Commerce issued a final finding that European and Asian producers dumped certain carbon and alloy steel cut-to-length plate in the U.S. market, allowing it to impose duties ranging from 3.62 percent to 148 percent.

Among the affected companies are firms in Germany, Austria, Belgium, France and Italy.
Gabriel said the U.S. government seemed prepared to give U.S. firms an "unfair competitive advantage" over European producers even though this violated international trade law.

"We Europeans cannot accept this. The EU must now examine whether it also files a complaint at the WTO. I strongly support this," Gabriel said. The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, is in charge of trade matters in the 28-member bloc.

"The WTO rules are the backbone of the international trade order. To deliberately violate them is a dangerous step," he said. "It is the first time that the U.S. in such a case resorts to distorting practices that do not comply with the WTO rules."

In Brussels, a spokesman for the European Commission said it regretted the U.S. move to impose anti-dumping measures, adding that the duties were "artificially inflated".

Gabriel also said Germany had to stand up to the U.S. and fight "accounting tricks" that put Germany's internationally competitive steel industry at a disadvantage.

"If the U.S. got through with unfair competition, other industries would also be subject to the same threat," Gabriel warned.

Economy Minister Brigitte Zypries said Germany would, along with the European Commission, continue to campaign for Washington to stick to WTO rules.

"The signals the U.S. is sending in the steel sector really worry us," Zypries said, adding that she would raise the issue when she visits the United States in May.

Read more: Germany urges EU to file WTO complaint against U.S. in steel row | News | KFGO-790

International Trade-Dumping Duties:China starts trade battle over Market Economy Status

eijing on Monday (12 December) filed a dispute with the World Trade Organization over the approach used by the European Union and the United States to calculate anti-dumping measures against Chinese exports.

When China joined the WTO in 2001, its accession terms allowed other WTO members to treat it as a non-market economy when assessing dumping duties for 15 years. That gave trade partners the advantage of using a third country’s prices to gauge whether China was selling its goods below market value.

But part of that clause expired on Sunday (11 December), which China says means trading partners must drop their use of such surrogate pricing.

China’s commerce ministry regretted that the EU and the US have not carried out their obligation and has requested consultations with both parties to have a WTO panel rule, the first step in what will likely be a drawn out battle at the Geneva-based body.

“China has communicated through many channels for the third-country comparison to expire. What’s very regrettable is that the EU and US have not acted to allow it to expire. It has had a severe impact on Chinese exports,” it said. “China is protecting its lawful rights and acting appropriately to maintain the WTO rules.”

The European Commission proposed last month a new way of treating China, but its plans are awaiting approval from the EU’s 28 member states and the European Parliament.

Read more: China starts trade battle over Market Economy Status – EurActiv.com

EU-US Trade Negotiations: TTIP Rhetoric and Reality: Europe's Regulations at Risk - by Frank Ackerman

TTIP:downward harmonization 
outweighing optimistic estimates

During the final week of April 2016, New York City was playing host to U.S. and European trade negotiators for the 13th round of talks on the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Protocols agreement (TTIP).

That it is still even under discussion reflects not only the vast political influence of multinational corporations, but also a certain automatic orthodoxy among many economists. The latter assert that trade liberalization can create huge worldwide economic benefits.

If those benefits sound important, I hope you enjoyed them – because they have already happened. In the “bad” old days – think 1990 or earlier – there were real barriers to international trade. Tariffs, import quotas and many varieties of protectionist legislation did appear to limit the flow of goods between nations.

But then, NAFTA and CAFTA (the Central American Free Trade Agreement equivalent) opened up Western Hemisphere trade. Next, China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO), and WTO rules lowered worldwide trade barriers.

Also, a longstanding textile quota agreement was allowed to expire as well.

Meanwhile, the European Union continued to expand its single market across more and more of Europe. Bilateral and regional trade agreements, too numerous to mention, continued to pop up on every continent.

Analyses sow there are enormous benefits from multiple areas of European regulation. In chemicals policy, the EU requires manufacturers and importers of chemicals to provide well-defined evidence on the safety of their products.

In the U.S., unfamiliar chemicals are treated as innocent until proven guilty, with almost no requirements for safety testing.

In climate change and renewable energy, Europe is far ahead of the United States. Thanks to feed-in tariffs and other policies that promote renewables, more than 25% of EU electricity now comes from renewable energy.

This has climate benefits, because it avoids CO2 emissions from conventional generation (usually coal-fired, in Europe).

It has health benefits, because it avoids the other pollutants caused by coal combustion.

And there are more than 1.2 million jobs in renewable energy industries throughout the EU.

The benefits of just these two areas of European regulation, chemicals policy and renewable energy, are almost as valuable as the entire economic benefit of TTIP to Europe (as estimated by TTIP advocates).

So suppose that Europe accepted TTIP and gained as much income as the trade optimists predict. If this came at the price of downward harmonization to U.S. standards,

Europe would lose about as much in the benefits of chemical safety and renewable energy as it gained in higher incomes. 

Since many other valuable areas of regulation would also be at risk, the overall losses from downward harmonization would greatly outweigh the optimistic estimates of the gains from slightly expanded trade.

The rhetoric of trade liberalization lives on. Only the reality has changed. As Janis Joplin might have put it, is free trade just another word for nothing left to lose?

We need another word for orderly, democratically governed trade between sovereign nations that are free to protect their citizens from social and environmental harm.

TTIP and similar proposed treaties have nothing in common with the international agreements we need to promote the common good.

Read more: TTIP Rhetoric and Reality: Europe's Regulations at Risk - The Globalist