India Cautions WTO Members Against Weaponising ‘Transparency’ to Justify Trade Retaliation

India has cautioned WTO members against weaponising “transparency” to justify trade retaliation or challenge legitimate domestic policies, saying it should be backed by sustained capacity-building support to ensure that all countries meet obligations fairly and effectively.

“Transparency” is a key component of the technical barriers to trade agreement of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Under this, member nations have to regularly and clearly share information about their trade policies, subsidies, and regulatory measures.

The US has been pushing for stricter rules on mandatory disclosures as part of the WTO reform proposal. It alleges that many countries do not timely notify subsidies, tariffs, or policy changes to the WTO.

Developing member nations of the WTO agree in principle that transparency is important, but have serious reservations about how the US wants to implement it. These emerging economies oppose penalties for failure to notify information, arguing that many countries lack capacity.

“India has cautioned WTO members against weaponising transparency to justify trade retaliation or challenge legitimate domestic policies, saying it must be backed by sustained capacity-building support to ensure all members, especially developing countries, can meet obligations fairly and effectively,” the commerce ministry said in a statement.

The issue was flagged on March 27 by Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal in a session on ‘level playing field issues’ of the 14th ministerial conference (MC14), which is underway in Yaounde, Cameroon.The MC is the highest decision-making body of the 166-member multilateral organisation, which meets once every two years.

India has also stressed on the importance of all members to have a fair opportunity to build productive capacity, create employment, and participate meaningfully in global trade.

In a separate session, Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agrawal said the country supports a time-bound restart of reform efforts with milestones, but said that it should be based on a more robust evidentiary analysis and through engagement with submissions and Ministerial Decisions.

“India unequivocally called for eschewing cherry-picking issues and proliferating preconceived and prejudged positions,” it said.

He also cautioned against plurilateral agreements, saying they divide the multilateral trading system. Agrawal called for the consensus process to be premised on the principles of openness, transparency, inclusivity, participative and member-driven, it added.

On the sidelines of the conference, Goyal held a bilateral meeting with his Canadian counterpart, Maninder Sidhu and took stock of the progress of negotiations for the proposed free trade agreement. He also met Oman’s Secretary of State to the Minister of Industry and Trade, Omar Hejira.