These are some of new information technology (IT) products covered by the newly struck expanded version of the WTO IT Agreement. This is what the WTO head said:
“Annual trade in these 201 products is valued at over $1.3 trillion per year, and accounts for approximately 7% of total global trade today. This is larger than global trade in automotive products — or trade in textiles, clothing, iron and steel combined.”
Notably, the United States – China deal played an important role in breaking the previous impasse. This is the USTR announcement.
“Last night, we reached a breakthrough in our ongoing efforts to expand the Information Technology Agreement. This is a WTO agreement that eliminates tariffs on high-tech products among 54 economies, including the U.S. and China… This is encouraging news not just for the U.S.-China trade relationship, it shows that the U.S. and China work together to both advance our bilateral economic agenda, but also to support the multilateral trading system.”
This “plurilateral” agreement may be a ray of hope to the WTO community, in particular amid the current Doha deadlock. At the same time, however, its limited membership and the nature of covered products (IT products) tend to throw the original Doha mandate (reducing or eliminating trade restrictions on “agricultural” products) into high relief.