WTO meeting ends with no deal

YAOUNDÉ, Cameroon — The World Trade Organization’s ministerial meeting ended in the early hours of Monday morning without reaching a deal to extend a moratorium on e-commerce tariffs or on a broader reform work program for the beleagured global trade rules body.

Director-General Ngozi Okonjo Iweala said ministers from the 166-nation global trade body had kept working as the four-day meeting in Cameroon ran into overtime on Sunday, but she finally called time overnight.

“We have run out of time. Some have already caught flights, and some have changed flights, and some will need to go soon,” she said in a statement.

“In short, we are very close to a Yaoundé package of agreements that would be important for Members and the future of the organization. We’ve worked really hard here, and we are very close, but we’re not all the way there yet.”

Okonjo-Iweala suggested that members use the draft texts developed over the four days of ministerial discussions to finalize agreements on outstanding issues in further discussions at WTO headquarters in Geneva.

These included the reform work plan that was meant to be the main deliverable of the meeting, and the extension of the e-commerce moratorium that is due to expire on Monday.

Multiple officials had indicated earlier that a compromise was emerging around a four-year extension of the moratorium, paired with a roughly one-year sunset clause designed to give businesses time to adjust.

Washington was pushing for a far longer horizon for the e-commerce moratorium — with U.S. negotiators seeking a 10-year commitment. Brazil threw a last-minute spanner in the works and was vetoing efforts to extend the moratorium altogether.

On top of that, U.S. officials linked any extension of the moratorium to their agreement on the broader WTO reform workplan, effectively derailing the talks and deepening U.S. frustration with the WTO’s negotiating system.