Trade ministers from around the world are meeting in Yaounde, Cameroon, to discuss reforms at the World Trade Organization, but large differences remain between most countries and the U.S. and India.
The ministers are facing a critical test to the organization's future amid a year of tariff-fuelled trade turmoil and large-scale disruption to shipping, energy prices, and supply chains due to the Middle East conflict.
India and the U.S. have resisted proposals of a substantive workplan on reforms, with India opposing an agreement to aid investment into developing countries and the U.S. proposal to permanently extend an e-commerce moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions.
India's Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal has cast doubt on U.S. efforts to extend the e-commerce moratorium, saying it warranted a 'careful reconsideration', while the U.S. USTR Jamieson Greer said Washington was 'not interested' in a temporary extension to the ban, only a permanent one.
The deadlock at the WTO on one of New Delhi's key priorities, a permanent solution on public stock holding, has also been a major point of contention, with big agricultural exporters like the U.S., EU, and Australia fearing it would allow countries like India to build large stocks of foodstuffs and dispose surpluses, potentially distorting trade and markets.
