US trade chief looks for incremental reform at WTO meeting

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said on Wednesday that she is taking a "pragmatic" approach to the World Trade Organization's next ministerial meeting, aiming for incremental but meaningful improvements that sustain the trade body's reform momentum. Tai told reporters ahead of the WTO's 13th Ministerial Conference (MC13) in Abu Dhabi that she did not anticipate a massive reform agreement that addressed all of the institution's shortcomings at once. The WTO faces a large number of difficult issues among its 166 members, including reforming its hobbled dispute settlement system, cutting fishing subsidies, resolving disagreements over agriculture subsidies and deciding whether to extend a 25-year-old ban on duties on electronic commerce data transmissions.