G20 trade ministers reach compromise in discussion of so-called food weaponization at meeting in U.S. - Russian econ minister

MILWAUKEE. Oct 2 (Interfax) - Trade ministers of the G20 reached a compromise on one of the four issues addressed at their recent meeting in the U.S., the so-called weaponization of food trade, and took into account Russia's proposals for expanding this topic to encompass fertilizers and the insurance of export shipments, Russian Economy Development Minister Maxim Reshetnikov, head of the Russian delegation at the meeting, which took place on September 30 and October 1 in Milwaukee, told journalists.

As reported, the meeting included a detailed discussion of four issues: food weaponization, the elimination of forced later from supply chains, the reduction of superfluous capacities and chronic overproduction, as well as the effectiveness of the Most-Favored Nation (MFN) system in trade.

"A compromise was reached in our discussion of the use of food trade as a means of achieving political objectives, so-called food weaponization. The important thing is that the final amendments made take into account our proposals. Firstly, the definition of food trade has been amended to include not only food, but also a further range of products including fertilizers, chemicals and seeds, and everything required for food production. The second aspect is that other aspects have now been added to the definition of trade, including services which are provided - freight and insurance. From this point of view, this is a practical result, which I hope will be voted on during the final declaration of the heads of state and government (in December in Miami)," the minister said.

He said that no consensus had been reached on the other three issues discussed.

"The first was the matter of revising the MFN system, the basic trade construct on which the World Trade Organization is built. On the whole, the proposal to revise this principal was almost unanimously rejected by all countries. Everybody said that this has always been an important element that is relied upon by countries joining the WTO, as it guarantees free access to markets and non-discrimination. At the same time, everybody understands that times are moving forward, the situation is changing and the economy is developing, which is why this concept, like all WTO instruments, needs to be developed. Procedures need to be sped up - those same anti-dumping investigations - and procedures are needed for reviewing obligations and inequality between those who founded the WTO, who generally have a higher level of market protection, and those who joined later. All of these matters need to be discussed, but almost everyone agrees that the WTO must be used as the platform for this, only the WTO reform is stalling and this is a big problem for everybody," Reshetnikov said.

"One of the two other issues which provoked a heated debate was the matter of superfluous capacities and overproduction. There is a large group of countries, including Russia, which said that the causes must be identified. The problems do not lie in overproduction, but in a non-market approach, including industrial subsidies, protectionism in the name of the green agenda, and so on. This also needs to be discussed on the WTO platform," he said.

"The fourth issue was the use of forced labor. The U.S. used this issue to impose import duties on goods from almost 60 countries. There was an attempt to legalize this approach, but almost all of the countries said that there is the International Labor Organization, which provides all of the necessary concepts and instruments, and isolated cases cannot be extended and replicated across all countries," Reshetnikov said. He said that this would be a topic for active discussion in future.

He said that the discussions were of an open-ended nature and would be continued, and further work would be done on the issues covered in the run-up to the Miami meeting.

He said that sanctions had not been discussed at the meeting.

Reshetnikov also said that there had been no bilateral meeting with the U.S. Trade Representative, but there had been many interactions with representatives from the other G20 countries.