Top US trade official slams WTO after failed talks

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WASHINGTON - US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on Monday lambasted the World Trade Organisation after high-level talks ended with a failure to extend a years-long ban on customs duties for e-commerce.

"I have always been skeptical of the value of the WTO, and this week's conference confirmed that this organisation will play only a limited role in future global trade policy efforts," Greer said in a statement.

The WTO's top-level ministerial conference that opened in Cameroon on March 26 ended Monday with no significant agreements and deep divisions on display.

As a result of the failure to agree on e-commerce duties, a WTO moratorium that, since 1998, has exempted cross-border digital transmissions from duties expired Monday.

It does not mean tariffs will automatically be imposed, but it deals a heavy blow to developed countries and the United States in particular.

The talks had taken place against a backdrop of global economic turmoil linked to the Middle East war, and a trade environment upended by US President Donald Trump's wide-ranging tariffs.

For nearly three decades, every WTO ministerial, its biennial decision-making body, has negotiated extending the moratorium exempting electronic transmissions from customs duties.

The United States identified Brazil and Turkey as the countries that blocked the extension at the meeting in Cameroon.

Greer said Washington would now "work outside of the WTO with all interested partners to get it done."