U.S. sugar import rules need an update, says GAO
The government should replace outdated sugar import rules that guarantee higher revenue to domestic growers and drive up food costs, said the Government Accountability Office on Tuesday. “The program creates higher sugar prices, which cost consumers more than producers benefit, at an annual cost to the economy of around $1 billion,” it said.
U.S. calls for WTO reform in 2024
International trade discussions are seeing a new dynamism now that the WTO is focused on updating and reforming its rules, said U.S. trade representative Katherine Tai. In a speech to a Washington think tank, Tai said the ministerial conference scheduled for February should "lock in progress on areas where we can agree."
WTO backs U.S. in challenge of Chinese trade war tariffs
China wrongly imposed retaliatory tariffs against U.S. products including pork, wine, and fruits and nuts in response to Trump-era tariffs on aluminum and steel imports, said a WTO dispute panel on Wednesday. The trade war levies were an additional 25 percent on pork and an additional 15 percent on fruits and derived products.
India is challenged at WTO over rice and wheat subsidies
Some of the world’s agricultural powerhouses accused India on Thursday of violating world trade rules through exorbitant subsidies for its wheat and rice farmers. India was the ninth-largest farm exporter in the world in 2020, but its success was built on subsidized production, said Australia, Canada, Paraguay, Thailand, Ukraine, and the United States in a WTO filing.
China is a big ag exporter as well as importer
In the past two decades, China has shifted from a net exporter of agricultural products, with a trade surplus of $2.3 billion, to the world's largest importer, with a trade deficit of $100 billion, according to a review of Chinese membership in the World Trade Organization. The flood of imports obscures China's position as the fourth largest ag exporter in the world, trailing the European Union, the United States and Brazil.
Looking beneath the surface, USDA paper gauges pandemic’s impact
Global trade in food and agricultural products grew by 3.5 percent last year, according to the WTO, leading to descriptions that the sector was robust and resilient in the face of the worst pandemic in a century. However, a USDA working paper says the impact of the coronavirus was obscured by such factors as the de-escalation of the Sino-U.S. trade war.
U.S. suspends trade engagement with Burma in wake of coup
Two months after the military coup in Burma, the Biden administration announced a cutoff of trade engagement with Rangoon “until the return of a democratically elected government.” The U.S. trade representative’s office (USTR) also said on Monday it would consider, as part of congressional …
WTO chooses first woman and African as director general
With a Trump administration objection out of the way, the WTO members selected Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a Nigerian, as its director general effective March 1. She will take office at a time of challenge for the organization; the world has lost confidence in mulilateral trade agreements as a path …
Tariff-rate quotas are more likely to stay than be negotiated away
The Uruguay Round of trade negotiations, concluded in 1994, created tariff-rate quotas for agriculture with the expectation that they would be a stepping stone to freer trade. Instead, most of those TRQs are still in place and new WTO members have added 43 more, says a report by three USDA researchers.
WTO membership is essential, say farm and agribusiness groups
The WTO may need reform, but there is no question the United States should be part of the international body, said five dozen farm and agribusiness groups in a letter to the Trump administration. "As long as exports are important to U.S. agriculture, WTO membership will be essential as well," said the groups.
Voluntary, not mandatory, meat-origin labels, says Perdue
Despite interest among cattle activists, a return to mandatory country-of-origin labels on beef "is not going to happen unless we want to do a billion-dollar litigation damage with Mexico and Canada," said Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue on Wednesday.
Trump tariff payments may bring WTO woes, says think tank
The United States could tarnish its leadership for fair trade in agriculture because of its multibillion-dollar trade-war payments to farmers, said a report issued by the free market American Enterprise Institute on Tuesday. Author Joe Glauber, former USDA chief economist, said the Market …
Sino-U.S. trade war could last until late 2020, says Trump
President Trump was ambivalent about this week's trade talks with China, saying "I don't know if they're going to make a deal," even as China hinted at goodwill purchases of U.S. farm exports. Meanwhile, the White House said China, the second-largest economy in the world, ought to shed its status at the WTO as a developing nation and to play by the same rules as the United States and other industrial nations.
U.S. wins again at WTO, though compliance by China may be months away
The WTO ruled in favor of the United States in its complaint that China had rigged its tariff system to constrict entry of foreign-grown grain. The ruling was the second U.S. victory in seven weeks against trade-distorting Chinese agricultural practices.
On trade: Long-term gain or long-term pain?
The Trump administration says its policy of confrontation with trading partners, such as the trade war with China and tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Canada and Mexico, will lead to more advantageous relations for the United States. But Bill Reinsch, of the think tank Center for Strategic and International Relations, says the promise of "short-term pain, long-term gain" is unlikely to come true.
WTO rules China gave its growers unfair wheat and rice subsidies
The Trump administration, with the weight of a WTO ruling behind it, called on China on Thursday to eliminate trade-distorting wheat and rice subsidies that cost U.S. farmers hundreds of millions of dollars a year in export sales. The WTO panel report may provide impetus to negotiations to resolve the Sino-U.S. trade war.
U.S. farm group would support supply management in NAFTA
Agriculture amounts to a small part of NAFTA trade volume but it is a major sticking point for U.S. and Canadian negotiators who are scheduled to resume negotiations on the new NAFTA on Wednesday. The second-largest U.S. farm group said the White House ought to adopt the dairy supply management system that it reportedly is trying to eliminate in Canada and reinstate country-of-origin labeling on beef.
In novel filing, U.S. says India grossly over-subsidizes wheat and rice production
It is clear that India violates WTO limits on trade-distorting farm subsidies, said the Trump administration on Wednesday in announcing a “counter-notification” that could be the first step to a formal challenge of India’s wheat and rice subsidies.