Trade ministers of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum member economies failed to adopt a joint statement after their two-day meeting in Detroit, the US.
The group reaffirmed its commitment to the rules-based multilateral trading system with the World Trade Organisation at its core.
Closing out two days of talks, the APEC host, US Trade Representative Katherine Tai, instead issued a chair's statement summarising the discussions.
“We reaffirm our determination to deliver a free, open, fair, non-discriminatory, transparent, inclusive and predictable trade and investment environment,” the statement read.
The building of such free trade environment has not only become an urgent task for APEC member economies, but also for all countries in the world in the context that global trade is facing many difficulties and challenges.
A thorny issue raised recently is that trade “barriers” are negatively impacting the world's trading environment.
A recently released WTO report said that countries were introducing trade restrictions at an increased pace, particularly on food, feed, and fertilisers.
Out of the 78 export restrictive measures on food, feed, and fertilizers introduced since the start of the war in late February, 57 are still in place, equivalent to roughly US$56.6 billion in trade. These numbers have increased since mid-October 2022.
In addition, commercial lawsuits also tend to increase. Right at the time of the abovementioned APEC Trade Ministers’ Meeting, the WTO announced that Argentina has initiated a dispute against the US regarding tubular goods used in oil production. Argentina requested consultations with the United States on Thursday over its anti-dumping tariffs on oil and gas pipes. This is the third such dispute brought by Argentina on the same matter.
Meanwhile, the trade war between the US and China since mid-2018 has not yet ended and continues to pose negative impacts on global trade.
On the sidelines of the APEC Trade Ministers’ Meeting, Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao met with US Trade Representative Katherine Tai.
Although China's Xinhua News Agency reported that the two sides had “candid, pragmatic and in-depth” exchanges on the China-US economic and trade relationship, as well as regional and multilateral issues of common concern, analysts are still concerned that the two powers will not find a common voice on trade issues soon.
At the meeting, US Trade Representative Katherine Tai highlighted the need to address the critical imbalances to the economy and trade policy, according to the statement of the US Trade Representative. She also raised concerns about China's actions against US companies operating there.
While the US-China trade relation has plummeted with increasing trade sanctions, the role of the WTO has been increasing fading. WTO reform has become an urgent issue raised at conferences of WTO, G20, and APEC in recent years.
However, the process of reforming the WTO seems to remain “stagnant”, despite progress in mid-2022.
WTO economists said in a forecast in April that global trade growth in 2023 is still expected to be subpar. Weighed down by the effects of the war in Ukraine, stubbornly high inflation, tighter monetary policy and financial market uncertainty, the volume of world merchandise trade is expected to grow by 1.7% this year.
