U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai met with World Trade Organization Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala in Jaipur, India, ahead of the G-20 Trade and Investment Ministers' Meeting, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative announced. The readout said Tai discussed U.S. support for the WTO and the 13th Ministerial Conference, set to take place in late February next year. Agreeing to remain in "close coordination" in the coming months, Tai and Okonjo-Iweala expressed their desire to make MC13 "the WTO's first reform ministerial."

Hong Kong and Ukraine formally accepted the World Trade Organization's Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies, becoming the 15th and 16th parties to do so, the WTO announced. The deal would impose rules to crack down on subsidies for illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. The announcement by Hong Kong and Ukraine means nearly 40% of member states have ratified the deal, which requires acceptance by two-thirds of WTO members to enter into force.

A World Trade Organization dispute panel rejected China's claim that its retaliatory tariffs in response to Section 232 tariffs were justified because the U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs were a safeguard in disguise.

China's Ministry of Commerce on Aug. 11 released a report covering "WTO Compliance of the United States." The report says China is concerned about U.S. policies and how they affect the World Trade Organization's rules-based trading system. A spokesperson for the ministry said China is using the report to call on the U.S. to abide by its commitments to the trade body, according to an unofficial translation.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is requesting comments on how Russia is complying with its World Trade Organization commitments, including in its import regulation, export regulation, subsidies, non-tariff barriers, intellectual property rights enforcement, rule of law issues, and trade facilitation, or other issues.

More than 230 environmental groups sent a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai asking her to seek climate peace clauses as she talks with the EU, countries participating in the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework and countries in the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity.

The World Trade Organization released panel reports covering two disputes between the U.S. and India after both countries came to a mutual solution. The countries in July told the Dispute Settlement Body they reached a solution in the disputes, including one disagreement over U.S. tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum and another involving India's imposition of additional duties on certain goods from the U.S. The mutually agreed solution came after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the White House in June and was announced in conjunction with the resolution of other spats between the nations at the WTO (see 2307190064).

Anabel Gonzalez, one of the World Trade Organization's deputy directors-general, said in a farewell column that although progress is being made on improving the WTO, "governments face some tough choices in the months and years to come to deal with pressing matters that, if left unchecked, could seriously erode the multilateral trading system and damage trade as an engine of growth and prosperity."

Indonesia launched a safeguard investigation on slag wool, rock wool and similar mineral wools in bulk, sheets or rolls, it told the World Trade Organization's Committee on Safeguards July 27. The investigation also will cover intermixtures of slag and rock wool, WTO said. Indonesia's Safeguards Committee said it will hold a hearing on Aug. 10 to give WTO members with an interest in the case to present their views, WTO said, adding that interested parties must submit their evidence and views by Aug. 7.

World Trade Organization members delivered "the first potential outcome on WTO reform" to be presented at the 13th Ministerial Conference by agreeing to a set of measures to boost the Trade Policy Review Body (TPRB) "as a transparency tool," while making Trade Policy Reviews (TPRs) more efficient, the WTO said. Coming up with the measures during a July 26 meeting on the Trade Policy Review Mechanism (TPRM), the members focused on implementing an improved information technology system to better facilitate the questions and answers process during TPRs.