WTO agrees global trade deal worth $1tn

The World Trade Organization (WTO) on Saturday struck a “historic” deal on international commerce that could add up to $1 trillion to the global economy.

The agreement falls far short of the WTO's lofty but elusive vision of tearing down global trade barriers through its frustrating, 12-year-old Doha Round of talks.

But the accord reached on the Indonesian resort island of Bali nevertheless marks the first global agreement struck by the Geneva-based body since its 1995 founding.

WTO agreement condemned as deal for corporations, not world's poor

The World Trade Organisation has sealed its first global trade deal after almost 160 ministers who had gathered on the Indonesian island of Bali agreed to reforms to boost world commerce.

The agreement, which was criticised by anti-poverty charities, came after intense lobbying by India over measures to protect its poorest farmers. A last-minute compromise between the US and Cuba was also needed over references in the final draft to the continuing trade embargo of the Caribbean island.

"For the first time in our history, the WTO has truly delivered," WTO chief Roberto Azevedo told exhausted ministers after the talks which had dragged into an extra day on the tropical resort island.

Canada's WTO Appeal Over Ontario's Energy Legislation Dismissed

TORONTO - The federal and Ontario governments are reviewing a ruling by the World Trade Organization that made-in-Ontario provisions of the province's green energy laws contravene international guidelines.

But there are no immediate plans to change the legislation, Ontario Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli said Monday.

Canada appeals WTO decision against Ontario's Green Energy Act

Canada has notified the World Trade Organization that it will be appealing a December ruling against the local content rules in Ontario's Green Energy Act. Japan and the EU successfully argued that requiring a percentage of solar and wind power components to be made in the province violated national treatment obligations in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the Agreement on Trade-Related Investment Measures (TRIM). Canada is appealing this ruling at the request of the Ontario government.

The "buy local" rules in the Green Energy Act create an economic incentive to transition away from coal and other dirty forms of energy and toward renewable power. Canada argued at the WTO that the feed-in-tariff (payment) that wind and solar producers receive for putting energy into the grid was a government procurement exempted from GATT national treatment rules. The WTO agreed that energy purchased in Ontario by public agencies is procurement for governmental purposes but that the purchase is also for commercial resale, meaning that the GATT exemption does not apply. The Ontario government is mum on whether Canada will contest this in its appeal.

Dalton McGuinty scores an assist as WTO torpedoes Ontario green strategy

Say goodbye to Dalton McGuinty’s green industry strategy for jobs and manufacturing. The World Trade Organization may have put the boots to it. But the Ontario premier and his government were unwitting accomplices.

Critics are already denouncing the trade body for vetoing a Buy Ontario plan designed to revitalize the province’s manufacturing base.

Ontario loses WTO ruling on green energy policies: reports

Ontario has apparently lost a key trade challenge to its green energy policies that force companies to buy equipment from local manufacturers, according to reports out of Europe.

A reputable international trade newsletter said Monday the World Trade Organization has issued a preliminary report that agrees with Japan and the European Union, in their complaint about Ontario’s support for its renewable energy industry.

WTO action on China’s rare-earth quotas makes the right point

The confusingly named substances known as “rare earths” – blame, ultimately, the Sicilian Greek philosopher Empedocles and his theory of the four elements – are a good subject for a World Trade Organization lawsuit. On Tuesday, the United States, the European Union and Japan commenced an action about a Chinese export restriction, though the prices of rare earths are currently falling. China ought to be held to its obligations to comply with the international trading system, and the rare-earths action is the proper way to make that point.

The market has been working to counteract China’s rare-earths export quota. China had obtained its dominant position mostly by low prices, not by any monopoly of rare-earth deposits. In due course, the high prices of Chinese rare-earths exports have lowered demand for them, and encouraged non-Chinese firms to look for, produce and sell more of these commodities themselves – a process in which Canadian companies – Avalon Rare Metals Inc., Great Western Minerals Group Ltd., Neo Material Technologies Inc., Quest Rare Minerals Ltd., among others – are taking an active part.

But China’s rare-earths quota is a direct contradiction of a WTO rule that, as Lawrence Herman of Cassels Brock LLP points out, goes back to the postwar General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1947; if a member-state imposes an export restriction, it must also limit its domestic supply – in China, in this case – so as not to discriminate. In fact, China is keeping its internal rare-earth prices low and its supply correspondingly high – a manifest preference for its own national market.

Since China joined the WTO in 2001, its government has not shown itself to be an arrant scoff-law. The proceeding by the U.S., the EU and Japan, still at a very early stage, may well achieve its salutary purpose.

Original Article
Source: Globe
Author: editorial

China raises the ante on trade with new tariffs

IT HAS BEEN 10 years since China joined the World Trade Organization. U.S. policymakers of both parties favored Chinese membership in the organization, which promotes global trade and resolves disputes. Not only would this facilitate trade, they argued, it would also help bring China into the framework of international law and thus encourage the rise of a People’s Republic that acted with the greatest possible consideration for the needs and interests of the United States and other nations.

How’s that working out? In short-run economic terms, the bet delivered access to cheaper, high-quality goods for U.S. consumers and more income for the once-impoverished people of China. This is the result one would have expected from freer trade, which remains the key to prosperity for all emerging markets and the global economy in general.

For the longer term, though, much depends on gradually resolving the huge imbalance between the two countries, which has built up as a result of China’s persistent trade surpluses, without triggering a trade war.

The Chinese have a point when they argue that the United States wouldn’t be so dependent on Chinese credit if it did a better job of controlling its own federal budget deficits. Nevertheless, China must adjust its export-dependent growth model as well. And in that regard, WTO membership has not delivered the hoped-for evolution in China’s mind-set — at least not yet.