Members of the World Trade Organization have reached a string of deals on food security, overfishing limits, and COVID-19 vaccines
fter all-night talks, members of the World Trade Organization early Friday reached a string of deals and commitments aimed to limit overfishing, broaden production of COVID-19 vaccines in the developing world, improve food security, and reform a 27-year-old trade body that has been back on its heels in recent years.
The WTO operates by consensus, meaning that all its 164 members must agree on its deals—or at least not get in the way. The talks at times took place in backrooms or in side chats because some delegates didn’t want to be in the same space as their counterparts from Russia—as a way to protest President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, which has had fallout far beyond the battlefield, such as on food and fuel prices.
The WTO chief said the deal takes a first step to curb government subsidies and overcapacity—too many operators—in the fishing industry. U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai hailed a “concrete and meaningful outcome to get more safe and effective vaccines to those who need it most.” But some advocacy groups were seething. Aid group Doctors Without Borders called it a “devastating global failure for people’s health worldwide” that the agreement stopped short of including other tools to fight COVID-19, including treatments and tests.
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