WTO Reaches Partial Agreement on Fisheries, Preserves E-Commerce Moratorium

Trade ministers meeting at the World Trade Organization in Geneva agreed to a partial solution to harmful subsidies for fishing fleets, an intellectual property waiver for Covid vaccines, and to allow sale of commodities to the World Food Program even if the product is otherwise subject to export restrictions. The countries that attended the ministerial conference also agreed to extend the moratorium on tariffs on electronic transmissions.

The statements out of Geneva also said the delegations will commit to WTO reform. "We acknowledge the challenges and concerns with respect to the dispute settlement system including those related to the Appellate Body, recognize the importance and urgency of addressing those challenges and concerns, and commit to conduct discussions with the view to having a fully and well-functioning dispute settlement system accessible to all Members by 2024," they wrote.

“The package of agreements you have reached will make a difference to the lives of people around the world. The outcomes demonstrate that the WTO is, in fact, capable of responding to the emergencies of our time,” WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said on June 16. “They show the world that WTO members can come together, across geopolitical fault lines, to address problems of the global commons, and to reinforce and reinvigorate this institution. They give us cause to hope that strategic competition will be able to exist alongside growing strategic cooperation.”

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, who led the U.S. delegation at the conference, hailed the fisheries outcome, even though it only prohibits subsidies to those fishing on the unregulated high seas, or otherwise are unregulated, or are catching fish that are overfished in that area.

"These strong disciplines target the worst activities that lead to the depletion of fish stocks; further, the Agreement contains strong transparency provisions that will add significant understanding of the universe of fish subsidies," Tai said in a statement. "With a commitment to also continue negotiations to build on these disciplines with additional provisions on subsidies that contribute to overfishing and overcapacity, the United States will continue to pursue more ambitious disciplines in the future, including enhanced transparency with respect to forced labor, shining a light on this egregious practice and with the aim of improving the lives of fishers and workers."

The fisheries agreement said that if comprehensive disciplines are not adopted within four years of this agreement taking effect, "this Agreement shall stand immediately terminated," unless the General Council says otherwise.

Politicians, trade groups and civil society both hailed and criticized the results of the negotiations.

The bipartisan Digital Trade Caucus called the continuation of the moratorium on tariffs on digital products "a clear win for American businesses and workers." The moratorium will continue until the next ministerial conference.

The Pew Charitable Trusts, which advocates for the health of marine life, said it is pleased that there was a "binding agreement to curb some harmful fisheries subsidies, an achievement that will help curtail overfishing and begin to improve the global ocean’s health."

The group said, "Governments spend US$22 billion a year on subsidies paid to primarily industrial fishing fleets to artificially lower fuel and vessel construction costs, enabling these large vessels to catch more fish than is sustainable by fishing farther out to sea and for longer periods." They noted those practices will be limited, and negotiations will continue on overfishing within a country's territorial waters.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and PhRMA criticized the intellectual property decision, known as the TRIPS waiver.

"Rather than focus on real issues affecting public health, like solving supply chain bottlenecks or reducing border tariffs on medicines, they approved an intellectual property waiver on COVID-19 vaccines that won’t help protect people against the virus," the pharmaceuticals manufacturers said. “Vaccine manufacturers have produced more than 13 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses and built capacity to vaccinate everyone in the world. Biopharmaceutical researchers continue to find new ways to fight this pandemic -- through variant-specific vaccines, new antiviral treatments, pediatric clinical trials and more. But unfortunately, last-mile distribution challenges are causing countries around the world to destroy unused vaccines and turn away donations. Rather than resolving these issues, diplomats spent the past year and a half arguing at the World Trade Organization over ways to undermine the very intellectual property rights that enabled hundreds of collaborations to produce the COVID-19 vaccines on a global scale.

“We are severely disappointed that the Biden administration helped lead this charge and gave away valuable American technologies to foreign competitors, undermining the millions of American jobs supported by our industry."

The Chamber did, however, express relief at the e-commerce moratorium. It also said WTO members must continue to negotiate on harmful fishing subsidies.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said, "I am pleased that the WTO Ministerial Conference was able to reach agreement on key priorities, including limits on fisheries subsidies that hurt our oceans and American fishers, protecting e-commerce, and a focused intellectual property waiver for the COVID-19 vaccine. While the work on these issues is not done, the outcomes in this ministerial are a testament to the hard work of Ambassador Tai and her team. That said, the willingness of some WTO members, like India, to derail progress and stand in the way of more significant achievements once again makes clear that reform of the WTO should be a top priority for the institution and for USTR.”

The top Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee and on the Senate Finance Committee condemned the TRIPS waiver, calling it a capitulation that will cost American jobs.

Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, and Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, also criticized the U.S. for not getting a stronger fisheries agreement or a longer moratorium on e-commerce tariffs. “These outcomes reflect a basic truth that the Biden Administration has ignored completely when it comes to trade: either we write the rules, or someone else will write them for us. Today, a handful of other countries wrote WTO rules that are bad for America’s economy, for our innovators, and for the global environment," they wrote.