Trade Chiefs Discuss WTO Reform, But China and U.S. Won’t Join

A group of global trade chiefs are meeting to start setting a reform agenda for the World Trade Organization, though it’s unclear how far they can take the effort with the U.S. and China excluded from talks The discussions Thursday in Ottawa aims to identify ways to modernize the global body that all — or at least most — of the WTO’s 164 members can agree to at some point in the future. The trade gathering comes at a precarious moment for the WTO, which is struggling to contain an escalating trade war between the world’s two largest economies. In the past month, the European Union, China and the U.S. have all advanced disputes at the WTO over new American metal tariffs, European retaliation and Chinese intellectual-property practices. Read more here