LONDON, December 16. /TASS/. US officials have sent a memorandum to World Trade Organization (WTO) diplomats declaring the end of the era of rapprochement between trading partners based on the organization's fundamental principle of non-discrimination, the Financial Times (FT) newspaper wrote.
The document was distributed amid debate on the reform of the organization, which will be the main subject of discussion at the 14th Ministerial Conference of the WTO in the Cameroonian capital Yaounde scheduled for March 2026, the publication said.
The most-favored-nation principle was designed for an era of deepening convergence between trading partners; this expectation was naive, and this era has passed, according to the document.
The six-page document lists US grievances against the organization, veiled attacks on China for accumulating huge trade surpluses and on India for blocking improvements in the WTO's decision-making process, the FT said. In particular, this concerns blocking the ability of WTO members to enter into narrow coalitions, concluding so-called plurilateral agreements on certain trade issues within the organization. The current most-favored-nation principle in the organization, under which the same trade rules apply to all 166 members of the organization, excludes the possibility of such agreements.
If members do not have the ability to conclude multilateral agreements within the WTO, it should be recognized that the WTO is not a viable forum for negotiations, the American side's document says.