The stalemate dashed hopes for new deals on e-commerce and curbs to farm and fisheries subsidies and raised questions about the body’s ability to govern increasingly disputed global trade.
The frustrations led some ministers, including US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, to suggest that negotiations among smaller groups of “like-minded” WTO countries were a better approach going forward.
“We have not achieved any multilateral outcomes,” European Union Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom told a news conference. “The sad reality is that we did not even agree to stop subsidising illegal fishing.”
She said the meeting laid bare one of the WTO’s biggest deficiencies - that all agreements must have the unanimous consent of all 164 member countries. She said the United States was partly to blame but that other countries also blocked progress.
WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo added that WTO members needed to do some “real soul searching” about the way forward and realize they cannot get everything they want.
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