Trade ministers looked set to wrap up their biennial World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting without having reached a single agreement on Wednesday, still reeling from criticism brought by the US, once the WTO's driving force.
The ministers gathered in Buenos Aires were never expected to agree to great reforms, with relatively minor and unrelated proposals on the table, including discussions on fishing subsidies and e-commerce.
But a discordant intervention by US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer on the first morning effectively left the conference adrift, since the WTO requires consensus - unanimity among all 164 members - to reach any agreement.
Even the perfunctory joint ministerial statement looked uncertain.
Driven by President Donald Trump's "America First" strategy and a preference for bilateral deals, the US had already blocked ambassadors from drafting a text in Geneva, rejecting references to the WTO's central role in the global trading system and to trade as a driver of development.
WTO spokesman Keith Rockwell told reporters that the chairwoman of the conference, Argentina's former foreign minister Susana Malcorra, was still hoping to get ministers to agree on one text later on Wednesday. "There still seems to be significant gaps. Whether they can find wording that can bridge those gaps I don't know," Rockwell said.
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