TWN Info Service on WTO and Trade Issues (Mar26/27)
26 March 2026
Third World Network

TWN MC14 Update No. 2

The Moratorium Trap: Why Developing Countries Are Drawing the Line on E-Commerce at MC14
26 March 2026

Kuala Lumpur*, Goh Chien Yen - The United States wants the World Trade Organisation to permanently ban customs duties on electronic transmissions. A broad coalition of developing countries is not having it.

As ministers gather in Yaoundé for the WTO's 14th Ministerial Conference, the e-commerce moratorium has emerged as one of MC14's sharpest fault lines. The formal ministerial session on the e-commerce work programme and moratorium is scheduled for Saturday 28 March from 2:00 to 3:30pm.

Jamaican Foreign Minister Kamina Johnson Smith, who is also the MC14 vice-chair has been tasked to oversee the issue of “e-commerce work program and moratorium”. She will be convening a first small-group meeting among key players today (26 March) after weeks of consultations in Geneva failed to bridge the divide. Three competing proposals remain on the table, and ministers will have to sort through what diplomats could not.

The U.S. position, backed by 18 co-sponsors, calls for an open-ended extension of the moratorium, effectively locking it in permanently. The proposal also seeks to expand its scope to cover the "content of the transmission," including electromagnetic signals. Trade experts warn this could sweep artificial intelligence services into the moratorium's coverage, something never contemplated when WTO members first agreed to the temporary duty-free arrangement in 1998.

The African, Caribbean, and Pacific Group has taken a different approach, proposing only a short extension until the next ministerial while reinvigorating the original 1998 Work Programme with a stronger development focus. Switzerland and Canada, meanwhile, want to create a new Committee on Digital Trade, institutionalising e-commerce discussions while also extending the moratorium.

India has been blunt in its opposition. It rejects both the permanent moratorium and the proposed digital trade committee, arguing the latter represents a structural change to the WTO introduced without adequate consultation. South Africa and Indonesia have taken similar positions.

Brazil has charted a middle path, signalling willingness to maintain the moratorium but insisting any outcome must preserve policy space on fiscal revenues, industrial policy, and the development implications of digital trade.

The stakes for developing countries are considerable. With AI increasingly delivered through electronic transmissions across IT, financial, healthcare, and education services, a permanent moratorium would not only mean significant potential revenue losses for the Global South but could also cement the dominance of a handful of major AI-exporting economies. As one digital trade expert put it, developing AI capabilities "has become a necessary condition and is no longer a policy choice" for countries seeking to remain competitive.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, in a statement to be issued on Thursday (26 March), argued that failing to adopt a permanent moratorium risks creating "complex and costly regulatory structures" affecting digital trade. But he made no mention of the unresolved disputes on dispute settlement reform or agriculture, including the long-sought permanent solution for public stockholding programmes for food security, issues that many developing countries consider far more urgent.

*With inputs from TWN delegation at MC14, Yaounde, Cameroon. This article is based on original news report, “Trade: Permanent Moratorium Push by US Hits Wall of Opposition from Global South Ahead of WTO Ministerial Yaounde, 25 March, ( D Ravi Kanth).”