WTO convenes ministers in UAE with slim hopes for breakthrough

ABU DHABI - The world's trade ministers gathered in the UAE on Monday for a high-level WTO meeting with no clear prospects for breakthroughs, amid geopolitical tensions and disagreements.

The World Trade Organization's 13th ministerial conference (MC13), scheduled to run until Thursday in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, is the first in two years.

The WTO is hoping for progress, particularly on fishing, agriculture and electronic commerce. 

But big deals are unlikely as the body's rules require full consensus among all 164 member states -- a tall order in the current climate.

Even WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has said she expects the meeting to be challenging due to the "economic and political headwinds" -- from the war in Ukraine, attacks in the Red Sea, inflation, rising food prices and economic difficulties in Europe and China.

Her team is working around the clock to draft agreements for the talks, she told journalists this month, noting that "negotiating positions are still quite tough", notably on agriculture.

During the WTO's last ministerial meeting, held at its Geneva headquarters in June 2022, trade ministers nailed down a historic deal banning fisheries subsidies harmful to marine life and agreed to a temporary patent waiver for Covid-19 vaccines. 

They also committed themselves to re-establishing a dispute settlement system which Washington had brought to a grinding halt in 2019 after years of blocking the appointment of new judges to the WTO's appeals court.

However, the WTO faces pressure to eke out progress on reform in Abu Dhabi ahead of the possible re-election of Donald Trump as US president.

During his four years in office from 2017 to 2021, Trump threatened to pull the United States out of the trade body and disrupted its ability to settle disputes.

Earlier this month, US Trade Representative Katherine Tai underlined Washington's "commitment to reforming the WTO and creating a more durable multilateral trading system".