Observers say reforms at the 30-year-old trade watchdog are urgently needed, with some believing the future of the organization is at stake. The WTO did not immediately comment.

Gridlocked negotiations

In particular, the consensus rule whereby all 166 members must agree to pass new trade deals has gridlocked negotiations for years, blocking even those that enjoy near universal support.

Norway’s WTO ambassador Petter Olberg wrote in the December 12 document seen by Reuters that the range of ideas for reforming decision-making meant that the issue cannot be resolved at a ministerial meeting in March 2026. However, he said progress was being made and ministers meeting in Yaounde, Cameroon should agree on a framework to move forward.

The U.S. voiced frustration in a communication sent to members that blockages in the consensus-based system were stopping members from joining plurilateral agreements. These deals allow groups of interested members to strike deals among themselves, with an option for others to sign on later.

It warned that this threatened the organization’s viability and could drive countries to negotiate new deals outside it.

Most Favoured Nation reform

The U.S. also called for reform discussions to address one of the WTO’s core principles – Most Favoured Nation (MFN) – which requires members to treat others equally. It said MFN was designed for an era where trade partners were expected to adopt open, market-oriented trade policies.

“That expectation was naive, and that era has passed,” it said in a statement.

“If the WTO does not reform by making tangible improvements in those areas that are central to its mission, it will continue its path toward irrelevancy,” the U.S. said in the communication.

A diplomatic source cautioned that the U.S.’ position was not widely supported by members.

“The U.S. views on WTO reform are far from those of most members and even challenge the WTO’s purpose and core principles. Simply put, without MFN, there’s no real multilateralism,” the source told Reuters.

Since U.S. President Donald Trump began imposing higher import tariffs this year on most trading partners, the share of global trade conducted under the WTO’s Most-Favoured-Nation terms is down from about 80 per cent to 72 per cent, WTO data shows.

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Canada has followed the lead of the United States and European Union, and announced last week a 100 per cent tariff on imports of Chinese electric vehicles and a 25 per cent tariff on imported steel and aluminium from China.

“China strongly deplores and firmly opposes the discriminatory unilateral restrictive measures taken by Canada against its imports from China despite the opposition and dissuasion of many parties,” a commerce ministry spokesperson said in a statement.

The ministry said China will also initiate an anti-dumping investigation into some Canadian chemical products.

More than half of canola produced in Canada makes its way to China, the world’s biggest oilseed importer. Canola, also called rapeseed for certain variants, is used as a cooking oil and in a wide range of products including renewable fuels.

China’s rapeseed meal futures on the Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange CRSMcv1 jumped 6 per cent to 2,375 yuan ($333.56) per metric ton following the announcement, hitting its highest since Aug. 6.

• RELATED: ICE canola drops as China announces anti-dumping investigation

The ICE canola contract for November delivery RSX4 dropped to its daily limit of $45, or 7 per cent, to $569.7 per metric ton.

“Canada’s canola exports to China have increased significantly and are suspected of dumping, reaching US$3.47 billion in 2023, with a 170 per cent year-on-year increase in volume and a continuous decline in prices,” the ministry said.

“Affected by the unfair competition of the Canadian side, China’s domestic rapeseed-related industries continued to suffer losses,” it said.

China’s rapeseed meal prices have plunged 22 per cent so far this year amid abundant oilseed supply and rising domestic production.

“The current (edible oil) domestic consumption is not strong, and there is an abundant supply of domestic stocks,” said Ma Wenfeng, senior analyst at Beijing-based agriculture consultancy Beijing Orient Agribusiness Consultancy.

China imports its canola predominantly from Canada, followed by Russia and Mongolia.

“Arrivals from Canada have been growing at a fast rate,” Ma said.

The world’s second largest economy imported 5.5 million tons of canola in 2023, valued at $3.72 billion. Imports from Canada accounted for 94 per cent of the total.

Comparatively, the bulk of China’s electric vehicle exports to Canada is from Tesla’s Shanghai factory and local Chinese firms have no big exposure to that export market yet.

Canadian imports of automobiles from China to its largest port, Vancouver, jumped 460 per cent year over year to 44,356 in 2023, when Tesla started shipping Shanghai-made EVs to Canada.

The Chinese spokesperson said it intends to resort to the World Trade Organization dispute settlement mechanism for Canada’s relevant practices.

The Canadian embassy in Beijing did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

China has also initiated trade investigations on imports of pork, brandy and dairy from the European Union in response to curbs on its electric vehicle exports.

Alternative supplies

China had targeted Canadian canola in previous trade tensions. In 2019, it suspended two Canadian canola exporters before removing the restrictions three years later.

Analysts said China could turn to Australia and Ukraine for alternative supplies, especially as Australia’s canola production is ample.

Canola production in Europe has been hit by poor weather while China’s agriculture trade with Ukraine is limited.

“We expect China to buy larger volumes from Australia if restrictions on Australian canola are eased,” said Ole Houe, director of advisory services at IKON Commodities in Sydney.

“As of now Australia’s canola exports to China are negligible, just about 500 tons since the beginning of 2024,” Houe said.

China’s imports of Australian canola have been restricted due to concerns about blackleg disease.

($1 = 7.1201 Chinese yuan renminbi)

– Reporting by Mei Mei Chu, Naveen Thukral and the Beijing newsroom.

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Canada has followed the lead of the United States and European Union, and announced last week a 100 per cent tariff on imports of Chinese electric vehicles and a 25 per cent tariff on imported steel and aluminium from China.

“China strongly deplores and firmly opposes the discriminatory unilateral restrictive measures taken by Canada against its imports from China despite the opposition and dissuasion of many parties,” a commerce ministry spokesperson said in a statement.

The ministry said China will also initiate an anti-dumping investigation into some Canadian chemical products.

More than half of canola produced in Canada makes its way to China, the world’s biggest oilseed importer. Canola, also called rapeseed for certain variants, is used as a cooking oil and in a wide range of products including renewable fuels.

China’s rapeseed meal futures on the Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange CRSMcv1 jumped 6 per cent to 2,375 yuan ($333.56) per metric ton following the announcement, hitting its highest since Aug. 6.

• RELATED: ICE canola drops as China announces anti-dumping investigation

The ICE canola contract for November delivery RSX4 dropped to its daily limit of $45, or 7 per cent, to $569.7 per metric ton.

“Canada’s canola exports to China have increased significantly and are suspected of dumping, reaching US$3.47 billion in 2023, with a 170 per cent year-on-year increase in volume and a continuous decline in prices,” the ministry said.

“Affected by the unfair competition of the Canadian side, China’s domestic rapeseed-related industries continued to suffer losses,” it said.

China’s rapeseed meal prices have plunged 22 per cent so far this year amid abundant oilseed supply and rising domestic production.

“The current (edible oil) domestic consumption is not strong, and there is an abundant supply of domestic stocks,” said Ma Wenfeng, senior analyst at Beijing-based agriculture consultancy Beijing Orient Agribusiness Consultancy.

China imports its canola predominantly from Canada, followed by Russia and Mongolia.

“Arrivals from Canada have been growing at a fast rate,” Ma said.

The world’s second largest economy imported 5.5 million tons of canola in 2023, valued at $3.72 billion. Imports from Canada accounted for 94 per cent of the total.

Comparatively, the bulk of China’s electric vehicle exports to Canada is from Tesla’s Shanghai factory and local Chinese firms have no big exposure to that export market yet.

Canadian imports of automobiles from China to its largest port, Vancouver, jumped 460 per cent year over year to 44,356 in 2023, when Tesla started shipping Shanghai-made EVs to Canada.

The Chinese spokesperson said it intends to resort to the World Trade Organization dispute settlement mechanism for Canada’s relevant practices.

The Canadian embassy in Beijing did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

China has also initiated trade investigations on imports of pork, brandy and dairy from the European Union in response to curbs on its electric vehicle exports.

Alternative supplies

China had targeted Canadian canola in previous trade tensions. In 2019, it suspended two Canadian canola exporters before removing the restrictions three years later.

Analysts said China could turn to Australia and Ukraine for alternative supplies, especially as Australia’s canola production is ample.

Canola production in Europe has been hit by poor weather while China’s agriculture trade with Ukraine is limited.

“We expect China to buy larger volumes from Australia if restrictions on Australian canola are eased,” said Ole Houe, director of advisory services at IKON Commodities in Sydney.

“As of now Australia’s canola exports to China are negligible, just about 500 tons since the beginning of 2024,” Houe said.

China’s imports of Australian canola have been restricted due to concerns about blackleg disease.

($1 = 7.1201 Chinese yuan renminbi)

– Reporting by Mei Mei Chu, Naveen Thukral and the Beijing newsroom.

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This time around, the actionless talkfest carried a steeper price than previous gassy gatherings. This one left the WTO, the world’s biggest trade-rules-enforcing body, badly weakened and in danger of slipping into irrelevancy.

WTO director-general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said the meeting had “achieved some important things and we have not managed to complete others.”

Nice try, but the truth is that the Abu Dhabi meeting achieved little and managed nothing.

The outcome wasn’t unexpected. In fact, it would have been breaking news had the ministers agreed on any new rules.

Despite continuous bickering, the rise and eventual embrace of the WTO’s neoliberal trade regime — lower or fewer tariffs, integrated regional and global markets, more standardized food safety rules and meaningful reforms to domestic farm subsidies — did fuel decades of expanded international ag trade. Now, however, the WTO’s stumbling progress toward freer markets is running out of steam.

One cause is the rise in nationalism and the protectionism that rhetoric breeds. Another, and one that no global organization even talked about in 1995, is the increasing number of individual efforts around the world to tackle ag’s sizable role in climate change.

These highly detailed, increasingly strict programs are focusing most nations’ ag interests locally and regionally, rather than globally, as farmers adapt, argue and fight over the implementation and effect of these changes.

Arguing and fighting is exactly where many European farmers find themselves in the current protests over the European Union’s new “green” regulations.

Most protesters see red, not green, when analyzing these programs. First, they say, new farming rules that slash pesticide use and impose fertilizer limits will cut farm profits. Second, the new regulations are an engraved invitation for low-cost competitors, not burdened by “green” costs, to flood EU markets.

Political leaders are worried about rising nationalism. Right wing politicians in France, Italy and the Netherlands, they claim, already are exploiting rural anger (and doesn’t that sound familiar) in hopes of expanding their clout through European Parliament elections in June.

To head off that possibility, European “lawmakers have rushed to make concessions to appease farmers,” global affairs magazine Foreign Policy reported Feb. 24.

In the “sharpest reversal” so far, it explained, “the EU abandoned its major proposal to slash pesticide use by 50 percent…”

In the meantime, few are looking for the WTO to muscle-up and reassert its presence in international markets. For that to happen, trade analysts explain, the WTO needs to stop bleeding authority.

For example, just prior to the February ministerial, delegates could not “even agree to ‘formalize’ the talks … to revive the WTO’s top appeals court … which has been idle since 2019…”

After five years of idleness, it’s not that the WTO can’t restart the appeals court, so much as key members won’t allow the WTO to restart it. Similarly, the just-again-failed ag and overfishing overhaul is more about “won’t” than “can’t.”

The result is a weaker WTO and stronger nationalism, and that’s a bad trade by any measure.

The Farm and Food File is published weekly throughout the U.S. and Canada. Past columns, supporting documents and contact information are posted at farmandfoodfile.com. 

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“A big volume was (exported) in December… but the rate (in January) will drop,” Solsky told national television.

“There are problems in the Red Sea and part of our exports went and are going through the Red Sea to China, Asia and African countries and therefore the movement of ships has slowed down a lot,” he said.

Attacks by Iran-allied Houthi militia in Yemen on ships in the region since November have slowed trade between Asia and Europe and alarmed major powers. The U.S. has begun strikes on Houthi sites aiming to degrade their ability to attack shipping in the Red Sea.

Solsky said an additional reason for lower shipments was the New Year holidays.

Ukraine exported 4.8 million metric tons of food via its Black Sea corridor in December, surpassing the maximum monthly volume exported under a previous U.N.-brokered grain deal.

Prior to Russia’s invasion in February 2022 Ukraine exported about 6 million tons of food per month via the Black Sea.

It now relies on the corridor along its western Black Sea coast near Romania and Bulgaria, its small ports on the Danube River, and exports over land via eastern Europe.

Kyiv believes it has managed to dislodge Russian forces from the western part of the Black Sea, securing grain exports which are crucial to its economy as well as for important imports.

Wheat shipments plunge

Wheat shipments via the Suez Canal fell by almost 40 per cent in the first half of January to 0.5 million metric tons due to attacks in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, the World Trade Organization said today on social media platform X (formerly Twitter).

The WTO data, based on a dashboard developed jointly by the International Grains Council (IGC) and the World Trade Organization, adds to signs of ship diversions following attacks on vessels by Iran-aligned Houthi militants in Yemen.

Earlier this week, shipping sources had said they expected some grain cargo diversions but that most would continue to risk passing through the Suez Canal which is the shortest shipping route between Europe and Asia.

In December, around 8 per cent of wheat shipments from the European Union, Russia and Ukraine that would typically travel via the Suez Canal followed alternative routes, the WTO said.

That surged to around 42 per cent in the first half of January, it said. Prior to the attacks, the share of alternative routes was only about 3 per cent on average, it said.

However, it appeared that few if any shipments were being cancelled altogether. “The surging number of diversions appears to have had a limited impact to date on total deliveries,” the WTO said.

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Poland, Slovakia and Hungary announced restrictions on imports on Friday after the European Commission decided not to extend a ban on sales into Ukraine’s five EU neighbours, which also include Romania and Bulgaria.

Ukraine retaliated by filing complaints Monday with the World Trade Organization (WTO) against Poland, Slovakia and Hungary, while other EU members condemned the unilateral moves.

Spain’s agriculture minister on Monday said the bans seemed illegal while his French counterpart said they called European solidarity into question.

Poland, with a parliamentary election looming in October, distanced itself even further and withdrew from a co-ordination platform — a group including the five neighbours, Ukraine and the European Commission — that has been looking at solutions to boost Ukraine grain transit to global markets.

“We have to look forward, since Ukraine said it wants to sue Poland… every comment we would have made on this platform could be used against us,” Poland Agriculture Minister Robert Telus told reporters in Brussels.

For much of the last year, some 60 per cent of Ukrainian grain has transited through the five EU countries using so-called Solidarity Lanes as an alternative to the Black Sea due to Russian threats.

Like most countries in central and eastern Europe, Poland and Slovakia have been some of Kyiv’s strongest allies in its fight against Russia’s invasion that began in February 2022. Hungary’s stance has been more ambivalent, as the only member of the EU and NATO alliance to maintain close relations with Moscow, still the main source of its oil and natural gas.

But grain exports have been an area of friction throughout the region.

Exports disrupted

Ukraine’s war with Russia has disrupted its ability to export agricultural products through its Black Sea ports, leading to a surge in shipments via road, rail and barge through its five EU neighbours.

Farmers in those countries protested these shipments were distorting local markets, leading the EU to approve trade restrictions — while still allowing transit — until Sept. 15.

Spain’s agriculture minister Luis Planas Puchades said it was up to the European Commission to judge whether the unilateral bans have broken any laws, but said the measures seemed illegal.

France’s agriculture minister, Marc Fesneau, was also critical of the measures.

“For solidarity there needs to be unity… We must keep hold of the two elements, otherwise the European project is at risk. The single market is a fundamental element,” he said.

Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said on Monday his country would look to extend a trade ban on Ukrainian grain for 30 days if import requests rise.

Ciolacu said Romania had not seen requests to import grain from Ukraine since Friday and did not want a repeat of the situation earlier this year that impacted Romanian farmers.

“The Ukrainian prime minister promised to send the export licensing proposal today, which we will discuss,” Ciolacu said.

“If there will be export requests to Romania I will ask the agriculture and economy ministers to draft an order extending the ban for a period of 30 days until things are clarified.”

The Bulgarian parliament voted to lift its ban on Ukrainian grains last week.

— Reporting for Reuters by Julia Payne in Brussels and Yuliia Dysa in Kyiv; additional reporting by Luiza Illie in Bucharest, Tom Balmforth and Pavel Polityuk in Kyiv, Sybille de La Hamaide in Paris, and Marek Strzelecki; writing by Nigel Hunt.

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In his opening remarks at the 16th Joint Ministerial Economic Commission, Farrell also told Wang that his country “can see the benefits for Australian and Chinese businesses and consumers that continue to flow from the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement” of 2015.

China imposed trade curbs on Australian wine, beef, barley, coal, cotton, seafood and timber exports in 2020, and Australia is still pushing to have some of those removed and for diplomatic relations to stabilize.

In January, Beijing gave permission to four government-backed firms to ship in Australian coal and trade in that commodity has fully resumed.

Australia also agreed in April to suspend a case at the World Trade Organization over China’s anti-dumping duties on barley, while China said it would hasten a review into the tariffs.

Farrell told Wang at the meeting that “Australia would always prefer dialogue than disputation” in regard to the WTO case. He added that he “can already see the benefits of dialogue in the agreements we’ve reached and a pathway to the resolution.”

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The WTO’s appeals bench, which rules on top disputes, has been mothballed for over two years due to Trump-era blockages of adjudicator appointments. Under U.S. President Joe Biden, Washington has resisted calls by WTO members to approve appointments and has instead been leading negotiations on how to reboot the WTO’s dispute system.

“Our goal is a fully functioning (dispute system) by 2024,” deputy U.S. Trade Representative Maria Pagan told Reuters in her first public comments on the closed-door talks, saying Washington was “very committed” to reforms.

Asked whether it was possible to revive the Appellate Body, Pagan did not rule it out. “I think it needs a lot of revamping,” she said. The U.S. has criticized the WTO’s alleged overreach and lengthy processes and it has strongly contested some of its recent rulings against the United States.

The U.S.-led consultations with more than 70 countries over the past year have involved 12 reform themes expected to result in concrete proposals, Pagan said.

She declined to give details but suggested they would include alternatives to formal disputes such as mediation.

The appeals bench freeze means 24 WTO cases are stuck in legal purgatory because the losing party has appealed into a void.

WTO director-general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has previously said the global trade body can reach deals on difficult topics like reform by its next major meeting (MC13) in early 2024, although Pagan said that might be too soon.

“We don’t view this as work that has to be done by MC13. But that does not mean that we’re not committed to working as quickly as we can on this because we are,” she said.

Some delegates have expressed disappointment with the U.S. engagement with the 28-year-old WTO, which it helped establish. Theycite Washington’s no-show at a key WTO meeting at Davos last week as an example. However, Pagan has refuted this, saying there was a scheduling clash.

WTO members agreed on the body’s first global trade rules reform in years last June which cut fish subsidies, but progress has stalled amid a dispute over who will chair talks. Pagan described the process as “frustrating” but said she was hopeful a breakthrough had been found, without elaborating.

— Emma Farge is a senior Reuters correspondent in Geneva; additional reporting by Philip Blenkinsop in Brussels.

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The WTO Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) panel suspended its work as of Tuesday, the complaint said.

Work can be suspended at any time at the request of the complaining party for a period of up to 12 months, said the complaint. If work is suspended for longer than that, the authority for establishing the panel lapses, it added.

China blocked imports of canola seed from two major Canadian exporters starting in March 2019, alleging pest contamination. However, the ban was widely believed to be a retaliation for Canada’s arrest of a Chinese tech executive the previous December on a U.S. warrant alleging bank and wire fraud.

Canada began the trade challenge process in September 2019, seeking bilateral consultations with China at the WTO.

The arrested executive, Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou, was released from house arrest in September last year and returned to China after reaching a deal with U.S. prosecutors.

A DSB panel had been requested last June and organized last November last year to hear Canada’s canola case, but China lifted its ban on the two affected companies’ canola in May this year before a DSB hearing could be arranged.

— Writing for Reuters by Miranda Murray; includes files from Glacier FarmMedia Network staff.

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Its highest decision-making body – a conference of ministers from the organization’s 164 member nations – has just met for the first time since 2017.

None of what the ministerial conference (dubbed MC12 due to being the 12th such meeting) agreed on was particularly groundbreaking. But the fact there was agreement at all, on areas such as agriculture, fishing, intellectual property, e-commerce and food insecurity, was itself a milestone.

The question is what happens now, with considerable challenges ahead for the WTO and its role in promoting and protecting a global rules-based trading system.

The WTO’s job is to be the forum for multilateral rule-making, to observe the implementation of these trade rules and to settle disputes among members.

In most situations, decisions must be made by consensus. This means a single detractor can scuttle initiatives supported by the rest of the WTO’s membership.

This has proved particularly problematic for the WTO’s rule-making function, which has largely been comatose for two decades, since negotiations on reducing trade barriers ground to a standstill at the ill-fated Doha Round launched in 2001.

Particularly damaging to the WTO has been the hostility of the United States. Past administrations, especially the Trump administration, stymied the WTO’s dispute-settlement function by blocking the appointment and reappointment of judges to its appeal court, known as the Appellate Body. By 2019, there were not enough judges to hear appeals, leaving disputes in limbo.

The WTO has also been criticized for having few to no answers to the world’s most pressing issues: how to craft modern trade rules that support climate action and sustainability.

The rise of economic nationalism and unilateralism has increased trade friction, making the WTO look increasingly irrelevant.

Given this, the ministerial conference held in Geneva delivered welcome agreements on several sometimes long and strongly contested areas.

It agreed on limiting government subsidies for harmful fishing operations in an attempt to slow the depletion of rapidly declining fish stocks. This agreement will aid in curbing food insecurity and increase the sustainability of certain fish species.

Importantly, it is the first WTO treaty with environmental protection and sustainability as its objective.

It agreed to relax intellectual property rules for COVID-19 vaccines.

Countries such as South Africa have been pushing for a waiver from provisions in the Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights so they can produce cheaper generic versions of vaccines. The impact should be limited, given vaccine supply is now enough to meet demand, but the concession may serve as a blueprint for the future.

It agreed to extend the moratorium on customs duties on “electronic transmissions” first agreed to in 1988.

It agreed to co-operate to resolve issues to do with food insecurity. With Russia’s war on Ukraine driving up food prices, some countries have restricted certain food exports or are subsidiszing the price of food from domestic farmers.

It also agreed to reform the WTO dispute settlement process, committing members – including the U.S. – to “conduct discussions” to arrive at a “fully and well-functioning dispute settlement system accessible to all members by 2024.”

Such soft language is a far cry from reinstating the Appellate Body. It was likely the only way to bring the U.S. on board.

The ministerial conference is only the first step. It will be difficult – and take time – for WTO members to reach a compromise on many important issues. Compromise is needed between the policy space governments demand for themselves and effective international trade rules.

For example, the U.S. and its allies have been pushing for tightening the rules on China’s state-owned enterprises and industrial subsidies. China has showed strong resistance to any new rules it views as being against its interests.

Another issue is support measures adopted during the pandemic. Some governments understandably adopted policies to support domestic businesses in a time of crisis. But some of these measures are arguably against the WTO’s rules to eliminate trade distortions.

These points are symbolic of the larger disagreements between WTO members, with economic nationalism and unilateralism presenting a fundamental challenge to the organization’s reason for being.

Examples abound. There are the U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminium on national security grounds. China’s trade sanctions against Australia on products such as wine, coal, lobster, barley and beef. China’s Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law and the European Union’s Anti-Coercion Instrument allow these governments to retaliate against any foreign actions they deem to be unfair.

A common feature of these instruments or actions is governments taking the law into their own hands, ignoring the WTO’s rule book and its dispute resolution mechanisms.

To overcome these existential challenges, the multilateral trading system will need strong and sustained commitment from member governments.

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