The World Trade Organization’s 14th Ministerial Conference, held in Yaoundé, Cameroon, from March 26-29, ended without agreement on key issues. It will be remembered less for what it achieved and more for what it revealed: a multilateral system under strain, drifting towards power-led rule-making by major economies. Long-standing compromises broke down, raising doubts about the WTO’s ability to manage a system that governs 98% of global trade.
The subject-wise outcomes at MC14 make that shift clear.
Digital divide: The e-commerce moratorium became the central fault line. First agreed upon in 1998, it bars countries from imposing customs duties on electronic transmissions and has been routinely extended every two years. This time, however, the United States of America pushed to make the duty waiver permanent.
Developing countries, led by Brazil, were ready for a routine, two-year extension but resisted making the duty waiver permanent. They argued that as trade shifts from goods to digital flows, a permanent ban would erode future tax revenues and limit policy space in a fast-growing digital economy. They also disputed its scope, insisting that digitally delivered services are not covered by the agreement.
Brazil opposed the final proposal, arguing that a permanent or even a five-year extension would break the established practice of two-year renewals since 1998, that there is still no agreed definition of ‘electronic transmissions’, and that a longer moratorium would restrict the digital sovereignty and the policy space of developing countries. It also cited the lack of progress in agriculture talks.
The episode highlights a wider contradiction: while the US is raising tariffs in traditional sectors, it is seeking binding commitments to eliminate them in digital trade where its firms, such as Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, Apple and Meta, dominate global digital trade.
With no compromise, the moratorium expired for the first time in 26 years — allowing countries to consider tariffs on digital trade.
Members also failed to extend the moratorium on ‘non-violation complaints’ under the TRIPS Agreement, allowing it to expire for the first time since 1995. The TRIPS NVC moratorium protects developing countries by preventing vague legal challenges that could restrict their ability to ensure affordable medicines, seeds and access to technology.
Plurilateral push: A second fault line at MC14 was the Investment Facilitation for Development Agreement, a plurilateral deal backed by over 120 members. India blocked its entry into the WTO framework, arguing that such plurilateral agreements would weaken the organisation’s multilateral character and allow smaller groups to set rules. Unlike traditional WTO agreements that apply to all members, plurilateral deals bind only those who choose to join, raising concerns about a fragmented, two-tier system.
At the same time, 66 members moved ahead with a separate e-commerce deal outside the WTO, underscoring a growing shift toward rule-making beyond the consensus system. They will keep trying to incorporate the deal into the WTO system as a plurilateral agreement.
Farm deadlock: There was no progress on agriculture, the central issue for India. New Delhi wants
its public stockholding programme — under which the government buys rice and wheat at minimum support prices, builds buffer stocks, and distributes food to millions — to be treated as WTO-compliant. The programme is vital in a country dominated by small farmers. But current WTO rules classify such support as excessive and, hence, trade-distorting. But the problem lies with the WTO’s formula for calculating subsidies which uses outdated 1986-88 reference prices that no longer reflect today’s realities.
The distortion becomes clear with a simple example. If India sets an MSP of Rs 25 per kg for rice and the current market price is Rs 24, the real subsidy is just Re 1 per kg, or about 4%. But under WTO rules, this is compared to a 1986-88 price of rice — say Rs 3 per kg — making the subsidy appear as Rs 22 per kg, or over 90%. Since WTO rules cap support at 10%, India is shown as breaching limits even when actual support is modest. India has long sought to address this anomaly, but could secure only a temporary ‘peace clause’ in 2013. At MC14, its demand for a permanent solution faced resistance, once again, from the US and the European Union.
Reform failure: Talks on disciplining subsidies linked to overcapacity and overfishing made no breakthrough. Efforts to agree on a WTO reform roadmap also failed, with no consensus on a plan through 2028.
There was also no progress on reviving the Appellate Body of the WTO’s dispute settlement system — once seen as its ‘crown jewel’.
Multilateral core under threat: What explains the lack of progress at MC 14? Let us recall that the WTO was built on a ‘grand bargain’, balancing the interests of both developed and developing countries. For example, in the Uruguay Round, developed countries secured stricter rules in areas such as intellectual property and services in return for developing countries allowing flexibility through Special Differential Treatment, retaining higher bound tariffs and a voice in decision-making through consensus.
MC14 showed that this balance of power between developed and developing nations is eroding. The US is pushing to dilute Most Favoured Nation, limit SDT, and sideline key issues such as agriculture while weakening dispute settlement by blocking Appellate Body appointments and promoting plurilateral deals among smaller groups. Together, these moves risk turning the WTO from a rules-based institution into one driven by power and selective coalitions.
For developing countries like India, the stakes are high. Without collective action, they risk losing policy space and influence. The response must be to rebuild alliances, defend consensus, and protect MFN and SDT before the WTO shifts from a rule-based system to one of power.
The long view: The WTO and its predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, helped expand global trade from about $50 billion in 1950 to over $35 trillion today — growing nearly six times faster than global GDP. The US deserves much of the credit for building this system. But Washington has turned defensive, arguing that WTO rules now favour production-heavy economies like China and others. It is pushing to reshape the WTO from a representative body into a narrower, power-led system aligned with its priorities. Many countries — particularly those from the EU and Japan — tend to back the US, while least developed countries often follow suit due to limited leverage. China supports most rules, confident that its manufacturing strength will deliver gains, while resistance from India and South Africa is weakening.
This signals a broader shift in global trade governance. What began as a club under GATT remained so until the 1980s, before becoming more inclusive in the 1990s, with a robust dispute-resolution system that allowed even smaller economies to challenge major powers, including the US. That arc is now reversing. The risk is a return to a club-like system dominated by a few where power overrides rules — undermining the foundation that drove decades of global trade growth.
Ajay Srivastava is founder, Global Trade Research Initiative