Title: A 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.
Policy area: Foreign Trade and International Finance

Summary:
This resolution expresses the sense of the Senate that the World Trade Organization (WTO) is in need of significant reforms and that the United States, acting through the U.S. Trade Representative, must lead efforts to achieve such reforms.
Specifically, the Senate urges reforms to the negotiating and dispute settlement functions of the WTO, as well as to the rules for special and differential treatment for disadvantaged countries.

[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. Res. 651 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

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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;
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;
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 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
    Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that--
            (1) while the United States finds value and usefulness in 
        the World Trade Organization (in this resolution referred to as 
        the ``WTO'') in order to fulfill the needs of the United States 
        and other free and open economies in the 21st century, 
        significant reforms are needed;
            (2) the United States must therefore continue to 
        demonstrate leadership to achieve reforms that restore the 
        effectiveness of the WTO's--
                    (A) negotiating function;
                    (B) dispute settlement function so that it 
                transparently, efficiently, and fully enforces outcomes 
                negotiated by members rather than usurping their 
                primacy by creating new rights or obligations; and
                    (C) rules for special and differential treatment to 
                ensure those rules promote development for truly 
                disadvantaged countries, rather than becoming tools for 
                globally competitive countries to engage in 
                protectionism and market distortions;
            (3) the efforts to reform the negotiating function of the 
        WTO should revitalize the negotiating function by providing 
        confidence to members that the WTO operates according to the 
        rules as negotiated and adopted by members;
            (4) a revitalized negotiating function must include new 
        rules that reflect the 21st century economy, further combat 
        anticompetitive and protectionist barriers, and ensure disputes 
        are efficiently resolved;
            (5) the United States Trade Representative should continue 
        to lead efforts to work with WTO members to pursue reforms at 
        the WTO that--
                    (A) ensure the dispute settlement mechanism 
                faithfully applies the rules adopted by members, 
                including by undertaking measures to ensure the WTO's 
                Appellate Body does not create new rights and 
                obligations;
                    (B) improve public confidence in dispute settlement 
                by promoting greater transparency and efficiency in the 
                conduct of proceedings;
                    (C) redress the consistent failure by certain 
                members to satisfy their notification obligations under 
                various WTO agreements, including through measures that 
                strengthen accountability;
                    (D) ensures rules for special and differential 
                treatment are appropriately reserved for countries 
                whose state of development and global competitiveness 
                actually warrants such flexibility;
                    (E) create new rules and structures that can serve 
                the interests of the United States while promoting 
                peace, prosperity, good governance, transparency, 
                effective operation of legal regimes, the rule of law, 
                and free enterprise; and
                    (F) expand upon the trilateral negotiations 
                currently underway with Japan and the European Union; 
                and
            (6) the United States Trade Representative should explore 
        and assess specific reform proposals, including--
                    (A) pursuing plurilateral agreements that further 
                the interests of the United States while limiting the 
                benefits accruing to countries that are not parties to 
                those agreements;
                    (B) efforts to ensure that incorrect 
                interpretations by the Appellate Body, including with 
                respect to the Agreement on Safeguards, the Agreement 
                on Implementation of Article VI of the General 
                Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994, and the Agreement 
                on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures, are 
                corrected, and not to be deemed precedential;
                    (C) new rules and norms to address practices of 
                nonmarket economies, such as practices relating to 
                state-owned enterprises, which certain countries often 
                utilize for objectives that cause severe trade 
                distortions; and
                    (D) better implementation of existing rules, such 
                as the prohibition in paragraph 4 of Article XIV of the 
                General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade on currency 
                manipulation, to ensure that those rules are effective 
                to preserve the rights of free market economies.
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