ABU DHABI – The United States delegation today delivered remarks at the Ministerial Conversation on Trade and Inclusion during the Thirteenth World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conference (MC13).
In their remarks, the delegation shared how the United States is building an inclusive trade agenda by incorporating more diverse voices into the policymaking process and by taking a data-driven approach to understanding the distributional effects of trade on working communities. They also underscored how the WTO must focus on representing the interests of more people across societies.
The delegation’s remarks as prepared for delivery are below:
Hello, everyone. It is great to be here with all of you for this important discussion.
The United States is fully committed to building an inclusive trade policy agenda.
To ensure that more people enjoy the benefits of trade, especially those that have been historically marginalized or underrepresented. To incorporate their voices and priorities in our policies and initiatives. And to take a data-driven approach to understanding the distributional effects of trade on workers and their communities.
Last year alone, USTR visited more than 20 U.S. states to hear directly from farmers, agricultural producers, workers, union leaders, Indigenous leaders, small business owners, and community-based organizations.
We are meeting people where they are and laying the groundwork to build and sustain trusted lines of communication with more communities throughout the United States.
This is a key component of our work to ensure that our trade policies are equitable and durable.
We are collaborating with our trading partners to find new ways to empower new voices and create more seats at the decision-making table, including by developing new inclusivity chapters in our trade initiatives.
This should also be a focus at the WTO.
The United States offered a paper in January to share ideas about how to integrate these approaches into our work.
This includes improving the transparency in our decision-making processes and the ability of all our stakeholders—especially those that historically had less access—to provide input, access, and learn about the WTO.
Not only that, by improving the availability of data and research, we can better analyze and assess the social impacts of trade policies on different people and communities across WTO Members.
APEC provides a useful example, where economies last year developed a set of principles on integrating inclusivity and sustainability into trade and investment policy, to bring more voices to the table and deliver tangible benefits to more people.
This work is highly relevant to the WTO today and to the WTO we want to build, together.
The WTO can better represent the interests of more people across our societies and help unleash the full economic potential of MSMEs, women, Indigenous Peoples, persons with disabilities, and people from rural and remote areas.
We are grateful for the topic today so that we can bring this dialogue into the WTO. We stand ready to share our own experiences and continue these exchanges among Members in a sustained and deeper way after this Ministerial Conference.
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