Source: POLITICO'S MORNING AGRICULTURE, 12/12/17


U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer was set to leave the conference late Tuesday night - missing the final day - leading some EU officials to bemoan what they saw as a lack of commitment from the U.S. Senior USTR staff and other U.S. officials will remain in Argentina through the conference's close on Wednesday.

Talking WTO reform: Trump's top trade negotiator did more than make headlines with his schedule on Monday. During the plenary session, he started his remarks by praising the organization for the "enormous amount of good" that it does, then launched into his most extensive critique of the WTO since taking office.

Lighthizer hammered other WTO members for what he described as an over-reliance on the WTO's dispute settlement system to gain concessions "that they could never get at the negotiating table." He also criticized WTO rules that allow members to declare that they are a developing country in order to be spared the more rigorous market-opening and other commitments required of developed countries.

"There is something wrong, in our view, when five of the six richest countries in the world presently claim developing-country status," Lighthizer said, referring to Qatar, Macau, Singapore, Brunei and Kuwait. "Indeed, we should all be troubled that so many members appear to believe that they would be better off with exemptions to the rules. If in the opinion of a vast majority of members playing by current WTO rules makes it harder to achieve economic growth, then clearly serious reflection is needed."

What was missing? There was no mention of U.S. priority areas for future trade negotiations. Instead, the veteran trade litigator argued it's "impossible to negotiate new rules when many of the current ones are not being followed." But Lighthizer did express a desire to refocus the work of WTO standing bodies on "new challenges," such as excess production capacity and the influence of state-owned enterprises. He also said the U.S. has an ongoing interest in knocking down unscientific food safety and animal and plant health barriers to U.S. agricultural exports.