III 

116TH CONGRESS 

2D SESSION S. RES. 651 

Expressing the sense of the Senate that, while the United States finds 

value and usefulness in the World Trade Organization in fulfilling the 

needs of the United States and other free and open economies in the 

21st century, significant reforms at the World Trade Organization are 

needed and the United States must therefore continue to demonstrate 

leadership to achieve those reforms. 

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

JULY 2, 2020 

Mr. PORTMAN (for himself and Mr. CARDIN) submitted the following 

resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Finance 

RESOLUTION 

Expressing the sense of the Senate that, while the United 

States finds value and usefulness in the World Trade 

Organization in fulfilling the needs of the United States 

and other free and open economies in the 21st century, 

significant reforms at the World Trade Organization are 

needed and the United States must therefore continue 

to demonstrate leadership to achieve those reforms. 

Whereas the United States had led the formation, as well as 

reform, of rules governing the multilateral trading system 

since World War II; 


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Whereas the United States is a founding member of the 

World Trade Organization (in this preamble referred to 

as the ‘‘WTO’’) and a key architect of the organization; 

Whereas the United States secured important commitments 

in the WTO to facilitate trade in goods and services, to 

prevent the application of non-scientific restrictions on 

United States agriculture, and to protect United States 

intellectual property; 

Whereas the United States uses the rules of the WTO to benefit workers, farmers, and businesses in the United 

States by facilitating access to the 90 percent of the 

world’s consumers who live outside the borders of the 

United States; 

Whereas the fundamental purpose of the WTO is to create 

space for members to negotiate with each other, and the 

WTO reserves to those members exclusively the right to 

negotiate and adopt rules that reduce and eliminate trade 

barriers and discriminatory treatment; 

Whereas the prompt settlement of disputes in which a member of the WTO considers that its rights are being impaired by the actions of another member is essential to 

the functioning of the WTO and the maintenance of a 

proper balance between the rights and obligations of 

members; 

Whereas the WTO’s dispute settlement function, including in 

particular the Appellate Body, has increasingly failed to 

enforce the rules of the WTO in a timely manner, and 

has usurped the negotiating prerogative of members by 

creating new obligations and rights that are inconsistent 

with the rules negotiated by members; 


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Whereas the creation of those obligations and rights undermines— 

(1) the WTO’s negotiating function by discouraging 

members from making concessions; and 

(2) the WTO’s dispute settlement function by encouraging overuse of the process and undermining its legitimacy, including by preventing free market economies 

from responding to globally trade distortive practices by 

nonmarket economies; 

Whereas the WTO does not have sufficient rules to discipline 

the distortive economic policies of nonmarket economies, 

such as policies relating to excess capacity and forced 

technology transfer, the special treatment those economies afford to state-owned enterprises, and their massive 

and opaque industrial subsidies; 

Whereas there is long-standing bipartisan support in the 

United States Congress to reform the WTO to address 

those failings; 

Whereas the current presidential administration, as well as 

prior administrations, raised concerns about the failings 

described in this preamble and have made reform of the 

WTO a top priority of United States trade policy; 

Whereas the United States urges WTO members to work 

constructively with the United States to assess the reasons why the existing WTO rules have proven inadequate 

in order to create an atmosphere within the WTO that 

is conducive to the development of new rules less subject 

to jurisprudential drift; 

Whereas the guiding principle for reform of the WTO, and 

the lens through which WTO members should consider 

specific reform proposals, is the restoration of the WTO’s 


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capability and capacity for negotiation between members; 

and 

Whereas, given that the United States has achieved its trade 

policy objectives through active leadership at the WTO, 

and that an absence of that leadership would be filled by 

nonmarket economies that are hostile to a host of United 

States interests: Now, therefore, be it 

1 Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that— 

2 (1) while the United States finds value and use3 fulness in the World Trade Organization (in this 

4 resolution referred to as the ‘‘WTO’’) in order to 

5 fulfill the needs of the United States and other free 

6 and open economies in the 21st century, significant 

7 reforms are needed; 

8 (2) the United States must therefore continue 

9 to demonstrate leadership to achieve reforms that 

10 restore the effectiveness of the WTO’s— 

11 (A) negotiating function; 

12 (B) dispute settlement function so that it 

13 transparently, efficiently, and fully enforces out14 comes negotiated by members rather than 

15 usurping their primacy by creating new rights 

16 or obligations; and 

17 (C) rules for special and differential treat18 ment to ensure those rules promote develop19 ment for truly disadvantaged countries, rather 

20 than becoming tools for globally competitive 


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1 countries to engage in protectionism and mar2 ket distortions; 

3 (3) the efforts to reform the negotiating func4 tion of the WTO should revitalize the negotiating 

5 function by providing confidence to members that 

6 the WTO operates according to the rules as nego7 tiated and adopted by members; 

8 (4) a revitalized negotiating function must in9 clude new rules that reflect the 21st century econ10 omy, further combat anticompetitive and protec11 tionist barriers, and ensure disputes are efficiently 

12 resolved; 

13 (5) the United States Trade Representative 

14 should continue to lead efforts to work with WTO 

15 members to pursue reforms at the WTO that— 

16 (A) ensure the dispute settlement mecha17 nism faithfully applies the rules adopted by 

18 members, including by undertaking measures to 

19 ensure the WTO’s Appellate Body does not cre20 ate new rights and obligations; 

21 (B) improve public confidence in dispute 

22 settlement by promoting greater transparency 

23 and efficiency in the conduct of proceedings; 

24 (C) redress the consistent failure by cer25 tain members to satisfy their notification obliVerDate Sep 11 2014 21:00 Jul 03, 2020 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\SR651.IS SR651

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1 gations under various WTO agreements, includ2 ing through measures that strengthen account3 ability; 

4 (D) ensures rules for special and differen5 tial treatment are appropriately reserved for 

6 countries whose state of development and global 

7 competitiveness actually warrants such flexi8 bility; 

9 (E) create new rules and structures that 

10 can serve the interests of the United States 

11 while promoting peace, prosperity, good govern12 ance, transparency, effective operation of legal 

13 regimes, the rule of law, and free enterprise; 

14 and 

15 (F) expand upon the trilateral negotiations 

16 currently underway with Japan and the Euro17 pean Union; and 

18 (6) the United States Trade Representative 

19 should explore and assess specific reform proposals, 

20 including— 

21 (A) pursuing plurilateral agreements that 

22 further the interests of the United States while 

23 limiting the benefits accruing to countries that 

24 are not parties to those agreements; 


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1 (B) efforts to ensure that incorrect inter2 pretations by the Appellate Body, including 

3 with respect to the Agreement on Safeguards, 

4 the Agreement on Implementation of Article VI 

5 of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 

6 1994, and the Agreement on Subsidies and 

7 Countervailing Measures, are corrected, and not 

8 to be deemed precedential; 

9 (C) new rules and norms to address prac10 tices of nonmarket economies, such as practices 

11 relating to state-owned enterprises, which cer12 tain countries often utilize for objectives that 

13 cause severe trade distortions; and 

14 (D) better implementation of existing 

15 rules, such as the prohibition in paragraph 4 of 

16 Article XIV of the General Agreement on Tar17 iffs and Trade on currency manipulation, to en18 sure that those rules are effective to preserve 

19 the rights of free market economies. 

Æ 


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