Canada and Europe make a deal to work around blocked WTO

Submitted by admin on Mon, 07/29/2019 - 12:44

Canada and the European Union have agreed on a plan to set up a substitute appeals body for trade disputes between them...

They are working around the United States' refusal to allow new appointments to a panel that already exists at the World Trade Organization: the WTO's Appellate Body is down to three members from its normal seven, and two of the remaining members' terms expire in December.

The U.S. has been blocking new appointments in an effort to force other reforms at the trade organization, which President Donald Trump has said was set up to benefit everybody except the U.S. and which he's threatened to pull out of altogether...

At a [recent] Canada-EU leaders' summit in Montreal, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and International Trade Minister Jim Carr discussed the contingency plan with European Council President Donald Tusk and Cecilia Malmstrom, the EU trade commissioner. The new "interim arrangement" ... is the result...

This was excerpted from 25 July 2019 edition of CBC News.