World Trade Organization members held the first meeting on fossil fuel subsidy revisions following the launch of the Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform initiative at the 12th Ministerial Conference, the WTO said. The meeting saw members looking for ways to increase transparency and hit long-term sustainability objectives relating to phasing out fossil fuel subsidies. The initiative has 47 co-sponsors and members plan to hold at least three meetings ahead of MC13.

The World Trade Organization's Dispute Settlement Body granted South Korea and the U.S. more time to find a possible settlement in the dispute over the U.S.'s safeguard measures on large residential washers, the WTO said Oct. 5. The U.S. and South Korea asked the DSB to adopt the dispute settlement panel's findings no later than Dec. 20, unless the DSB decides not to do so or either party tells the DSB of its decision to appeal the ruling. The DSB agreed to the terms.

The World Trade Organization expects global trade growth to "lose momentum" in the second half of the year and remain tepid in 2023 given multiple shocks to the world economy, the WTO said. Global merchandise trade is now predicted to grow by 3.5% in 2022, but to improve by only 1% in 2023, down from an earlier estimate of 3.4%, the trade body said. The WTO expects import demand to slow given high energy prices stemming from Russia's war in Ukraine and tightening monetary policy in the U.S. that will impact interest-sensitive spending in industries such as housing. Further, China's COVID-19 policy and production disruptions coupled with weak external demand along with "growing import bills for fuels, food and fertilizers could lead to food insecurity and debt distress in developing countries," the WTO said.

Tax credits for electric vehicles made in North America -- an element of the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act -- deals a "body-blow" to the World Trade Organization beyond anything doled out under the previous administration, John Magnus, president of Tradewins, said in a post on the International Economic Law and Policy Blog. The tax credit "clearly signals" that the government does not weigh WTO-consistency when making policy decisions, and anyone concerned about the legitimacy of the world's largest multilateral trade organization should be concerned since the U.S. widened the prospect of flouting the WTO's rules, the blog post said.

Panelists at a Sept. 28 Public Forum session held at the World Trade Organization said member nations need to set into motion the implementation of the Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies, the WTO said. The key agreement, reached at the 12th Ministerial Conference in June, bars certain subsidies to protect global fish stocks while committing WTO members to engage in further negotiations on the tenants of the deal.

The Sept. 22 meeting of World Trade Organization's Committee on Regional Trade Agreements focused on five RTAs, the WTO said. South Korea's Taeho Lee, the committee's chair, called on members to ramp up efforts to provide outstanding data and comments for presentations of RTAs and to look into how the committee's work could be improved as part of efforts to reform the WTO.

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said she had an informal dialogue about the World Trade Organization dispute settlement system with representatives from Argentina, Brazil, Cambodia, India and South Africa. Tai was in Bali, Indonesia, for a G-20 trade ministers meeting, and the discussion happened on the sidelines of that meeting.

The bid to seat members on the World Trade Organization's Appellate Body has a new member: St. Kitts and Nevis. The Caribbean nation has become the latest to join the co-sponsors looking to start the process for filling openings at the WTO's highest dispute settlement body -- a move the U.S. has unilaterally prevented since 2016, a Geneva-based trade official said. Joining the process at the Sept. 23 meeting of the Dispute Settlement Body, St. Kitts and Nevis became part of the 58th time a proposal to fill the Appellate Body brought by a group of 127 WTO members was blocked. The U.S. again said that it does not support the decision to get the body back up and running, citing its concerns with the institution and the lack of reform. Antigua and Barbuda noted St. Kitts and Nevis' addition to the coalition opposing the U.S.'s action and declared that their goal is for all Organization of Eastern Caribbean States members to join as co-sponsors. The next DSB meeting is set for Oct. 26.

The World Trade Organization held phase two of its Advanced Agriculture Notification Workshop Sept. 13-16 to help members fulfill their agricultural notification obligations under the Agriculture Agreement, the WTO said. The meetings covered issues involving market access and the implementation of the Bali Decision on tariff quota administration and the Committee on Agriculture's Review Process.

For the first time since the establishment of the World Trade Organization, the U.S. in 2021 was neither a complaining party nor named a respondent in a new dispute, the International Trade Commission said in its Year in Trade 2021 annual report. The report, subtitled "Operation of the Trade Agreements Program," further said that during 2021, WTO members filed nine new dispute settlement consultation requests, up from five in 2020, though still the second-lowest mark for any year since the start of the WTO in 1995. The disputes were filed by eight WTO members: Costa Rica, Malaysia, Japan, Australia, China, the EU, Saudi Arabia and Brazil. Costa Rica filed two disputes. Other elements of the ITC's report touch on U.S. concerns about the WTO dispute settlement system and panels set up in 2021 that involve the U.S.