Goods/General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)

Goods Council debates national security exceptions to WTO rules
(Kanaga Raja, Geneva, 6 July 2017)
A meeting of the WTO Goods Council on 30 June debated the issue of national security exceptions to the WTO rules, with a number of members voicing concerns over the "systemic risks" posed by the investigations initiated by the United States earlier this year into steel and aluminium imports under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962.

China lowers MC11 ambition on AD-CVD, US still opposed
(D. Ravi Kanth, Geneva, 30 June 2017)
China faces an acid test for bringing about a modest outcome of improvements in trade remedies at the World Trade Organization's eleventh ministerial meeting in Buenos Aires in December as the United States remains dead opposed to any changes in the anti-dumping provisions as well as negotiated deliverables in the Argentinean capital.

Investment Facilitation and links to China's OBOR
(Chakravarthi Raghavan, Geneva, 22 May 2017)
The stalemate over the agenda at the General Council last week, resolved on 18 May with a compromise of sorts by the statement from the GC Chair, Amb. Xavier Carim of South Africa, has nevertheless brought to the fore many questionable practices of the secretariat and major systemic issues that, if left unresolved, may soon result in causing irreparable damage to the WTO multilateral trading system.