00:00 Speaker A
What would you have cited as the top two or three things that actually did need fixing in the global trading system?
00:11 Speaker B
Yeah, that’s a great question. I think the US has had some long-standing grievances. Uh, most of them have to do frankly with particular sectors that we’ve been unable to negotiate uh lower tariffs in. So for example with Europe, we’ve been unable to negotiate lower tariffs in agriculture. The Europeans have their issues with the US as well. We have higher tariffs on uh labor intensive goods like apparel. So, uh, you know, we have been unable at the bargaining table to get some uh lower tariffs, uh and that has been a point of contention. There’s also a lot of contention around um non-tariff barriers, such things as, you know, sanitary regulations, scientific regulations that for example, uh may hurt the market for uh GMO treated uh seeds and in in crops. So we have some issues there. Other issues of protection on on dairy and meat in some countries. So, particularly in the egg sector, we’ve had a desire to lower non-tariff barriers. Particularly with respect to China, we’ve had a much bigger menu. And in particular, the US has been uh very concerned about Chinese subsidies uh to their industries. Um and white was taken to the WTO when the US tried to use countervailing duties, anti-dumping duties against China. Uh, the US doesn’t like the way the WTO is ruling on some of these cases, and in fact has really brought the uh Appellate body, that is the body to which you complain if you don’t like the agreement. It has brought it to a halt. So I would say those are those are some of the main complaints that we’ve had.
