The WTO’s 14th Ministerial Conference closed early March 30 with ministers adopting a narrow set of decisions but failing to resolve the meeting’s central fights over e-commerce, agriculture, WTO reform, and the status of key plurilateral deals, leaving Geneva to pick up the pieces. WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said members were “very close” to a broader Yaoundé package, but acknowledged they were “not all the way there yet.”

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer used a message to ministers at the WTO’s 14th Ministerial Conference in Yaoundé to argue that the WTO cannot address Washington’s core trade concerns and …

On the eve of the World Trade Organization’s 14th Ministerial Conference in Yaoundé, Cameroon, the United States circulated a new reform paper pressing members to adapt the institution to what Washington describes as a trading system increasingly driven by reciprocity, balance, and national interest rather than inherited assumptions of convergence.

WTO members clashed at the 14th Ministerial Conference in Yaoundé, Cameroon, over whether development flexibilities should remain a core legal entitlement for developing countries or be replaced by a narrower, needs-based system applied on terms largely shaped by major powers. 

The World Trade Organization said Wednesday that global trade growth is set to slow sharply in 2026 after a stronger-than-expected 2025, with economists warning that a prolonged Middle East conflict could further depress merchandise and services trade by keeping energy prices high and disrupting transport, travel, and fertilizer flows. 

The United States on Wednesday rejected the draft WTO reform package prepared by facilitator Ambassador Petter Olberg of Norway, casting fresh doubt on whether members can transmit any credible reform text to ministers ahead of the 14th Ministerial Conference later this month in Yaoundé.

The draft declaration puts agriculture back at the center of the WTO ministerial agenda, but it also underscores how little convergence members have achieved after years of talks. By leaning mainly on Jamaica’s food-security-focused proposal while sidestepping core demands from the African Group and India, the text sets up a final pre-MC14 fight over whether ministers can produce a credible path forward on farm trade reform or merely paper over entrenched divisions on public stockholding, special safeguards, and the future direction of the Doha agriculture negotiations.

At the World Trade Organization’s Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) meeting on 24 February 2026, members revisited legal fault lines exposed by the ongoing paralysis of the Appellate Body, while …

WTO agriculture negotiators are entering the final stretch before the 14th Ministerial Conference (MC14) in Yaoundé with limited convergence and competing proposals that many delegations view as mutually incompatible.

African Union trade ministers met in Maputo ahead of the WTO’s 14th Ministerial Conference (MC14) in Yaoundé, with reform of WTO decision-making, dispute settlement, and development priorities at the center of their agenda. Africa is pressing for WTO reform that pairs institutional changes with concrete development outcomes—especially on agriculture and dispute settlement—rather than   adjustments.

World Trade Organization members on Thursday agreed to forward a draft ministerial decision for approval at next month’s 14th Ministerial Conference (MC14) aimed at improving the integration of small economies into the global trading system. Delegations described the text as the first draft decision formally prepared for ministers’ consideration at MC14.

China on Wednesday called for preserving an “open, inclusive, transparent and non-discriminatory multilateral trading system” at the World Trade Organization, while pressing members to advance WTO reform through “concrete actions.”

The facilitator overseeing World Trade Organization (WTO) reform talks has circulated a top-down agenda—anchored by a revised draft ministerial statement and a set of “suggested questions”—as members begin breakout sessions today, trade envoys said.

The facilitator for World Trade Organization reform discussions, Petter Ølberg, said he hopes the upcoming 14th Ministerial Conference (MC14) will come to be known as a “reform ministerial.” The objective, he explained at a program hosted by the Washington International Trade Association, is not to produce a final document but to establish a path for members to continue reform discussions beyond MC14.

With less than two months remaining before the World Trade Organization’s 14th Ministerial Conference (MC14) in Yaoundé, Cameroon, agriculture negotiations remain deeply divided. The chair of the Doha agriculture talks is pressing members to rally around a Jamaican proposal that many developing countries say would effectively defer substantive negotiations, despite the tabling this week of a fresh draft by the G33, according to people familiar with the discussions.

Several African developing countries and least-developed countries (LDCs) have called for the provision of listening-room facilities during closed-door ministerial exchanges at the upcoming 14th Ministerial Conference (MC14), to be held in Yaoundé, Cameroon. Such facilities were routinely provided at previous ministerial conferences, according to people familiar with the matter.

A World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement panel has ruled that several tax incentives adopted by the United States under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) contravene core WTO obligations, finding them discriminatory and prohibited as subsidies under WTO law.

The World Trade Organization’s General Council meeting in Geneva closed without breakthroughs, underscoring deep divisions ahead of the 14th Ministerial Conference (MC14) scheduled for March.

The facilitator of the World Trade Organization’s reform discussions has circulated a detailed assessment of members’ positions, highlighting deep divergences on decision-making, development, and leveling-the-playing-field issues—while leaving core crises such as dispute settlement largely untouched, according to a document seen by WTD.

Washington’s alignment with Moscow in a low-profile UN vote underscores its policy shift as US officials move to broker a deal to end the war in Ukraine on Russia's terms.