The United States is a leader at the World Trade Organization (WTO) on trade and environment issues, including through the continued negotiations for comprehensive disciplines on harmful fisheries subsidies, advancing deliberations on how trade tools can contribute to addressing current environmental challenges, supporting engagement between WTO Members on how trade can be part of the solution to plastic pollution, and promoting other environmental sustainability considerations in trade.
Disciplining Harmful Fisheries Subsidies
Overcapacity and overfishing is a global concern for fisheries sustainability and for the livelihoods of fishers and fishing communities around the world. Global fish stocks are facing increased fishing effort—according to the 2024 Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report, 37.7% of global fish stocks are fished at unsustainable levels. At the 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12) in June 2022, the WTO adopted the Agreement on Fishing Subsidies (Agreement), concluding the first multilateral trade agreement centered on environmental sustainability. This historic Agreement will be instrumental in reducing harmful fisheries subsidies provided by all WTO Members, regardless of development status, while also protecting our oceans and supporting our fishers and workers.
In April 2023, the United States, submitted its instrument of acceptance of the Protocol of the Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies. The Agreement includes important disciplines, including prohibitions on subsidies to vessels or operators engaged in IUU fishing, subsidies to fishing regarding stocks that are overfished, and subsidies to fishing on the high seas outside of the competence of a relevant regional fisheries management organization or arrangement. The Agreement also includes robust transparency provisions to strengthen WTO Members’ notification of harmful fisheries subsidies and to enable effective monitoring of Members’ implementation of their obligations.
The list of WTO Members that have submitted their acceptance of the Agreement can be found here.
The United States, along with other WTO members, is committed to continuing the fisheries subsidies negotiations to reach agreement on comprehensive disciplines, including on certain forms of fisheries subsidies that contribute to overcapacity and overfishing. As of January 2025, the WTO negotiations remain ongoing.
Recent statements made by the U.S. Mission to the WTO can be found here.
More information on the WTO negotiations on fisheries subsidies can be found here.
WTO Committee on Trade and Environment
The WTO Committee on Trade and Environment (CTE) was created by the WTO General Council on January 31, 1995, pursuant to the Marrakesh Ministerial Decision on Trade and Environment.
Since then, the CTE has discussed many issues, including:
- Market access associated with environmental measures;
- Environment provisions in regional trade agreements;
- Sustainable materials management, including shifting the resource-use model to a trade facilitative circular economy model;
- Trade-related provisions in multilateral environmental agreements;
- Capacity-building and environmental reviews
In November 2020, the informal dialogue on Trade and Environmental Sustainability Structured Discussions (TESSD) was launched on the margins of the CTE. In November 2021, the United States formally joined the TESSD initiative, noting its potential to serve as an incubator of new and innovative approaches to tackle trade and environment challenges, such as climate change, and co-sponsored a Ministerial Statement that outlined priorities for the TESSD for 2022. Members continued to work in 2023 and 2024, taking a goals-oriented approach to identifying topics of discussion and organizing in-depth sessions to understand the relationship between trade and environment.
As part of the TESSD, the United States continues to actively engage in and lead discussion on issues such as trade-related climate measures, environmental goods and services that contribute to addressing environmental goals, as well as circular economy and circularity, to deepen knowledge and dialogue among WTO Members on emerging issues in trade and environmental policy.
More information on the TESSD can be found here.
In March 2023, the United States formally joined the Dialogue on Plastic Pollution and Environmentally Sustainable Plastic Trade (DPP). The United States participated in various lines of effort under the DPP in 2023, including those focused on tackling plastics pollution through trade-related measures and strengthening relevant technical assistance for developing economies. The United States will continue to seek opportunities to address plastics pollution and to advocate for a trade facilitative approach to circular economy, and sustainable materials management and resource efficiency.
More information on the DPP can be found here.
More information on our work on circular economy can be found here.
Related links:
More on Environment in the WTO
For more information on Trade and Environment work at the WTO click here.
