The WTO has set a deadline of July for ministers to agree upon an outline deal, aware that after that, the US will be focused upon forthcoming elections: and some fear if this window of opportunity is missed it could be months and possibly years before another trade deal can be done.
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So the WTO I think has been a very good forum for ensuring that behavior has a mechanism for being dealt with in the dispute-resolution process.
That its regional rival, China, which has been a member of the WTO for almost 10 years only adds fuel to the fire.
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Mr Putin, initially eager for Russia to be in the big international clubs, has come to see some WTO demands as a politically motivated nuisance.
It has not been a good year for the WTO, whose members failed to agree earlier this year on who should be its new director general.
China has yet to comment on the formal request for a WTO hearing.
The U.S. has three to four top-tier WTO law firms and about a dozen other law firms that have WTO practices.
China has filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization (WTO) against subsidies provided by some European governments to solar panel makers.
The EU has still failed to lift a ban, declared illegal by the WTO six years ago, on American and Canadian beef from cattle treated with growth hormones.
WTO, it is not fanciful to argue, has the potential to change the dynamics of a political system that every day looks more out-of-date.
By keeping the exchange rate down, China's critics allege, it has gained a substitute for the mercantilist measures it gave up to join the WTO.
The WTO, backed by the U.S., has so far refused to grant China such a provision.
Because it deals with so many separate issues, from farm subsidies to intellectual-property rights, the WTO attracts a very mixed bag of opponents, which is one reason that opposition to it has been hard to focus.
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WTO, but has also made it clear that it sees bilateral or regional free-trade agreements as a legitimate alternative.
Though the WTO has for the most part focused on reducing import restrictions, over the last decade there has been a growth in the use of unilateral export restrictions.
And the Congressional China Currency Action Coalition has filed a Section 301 petition asking the Bush administration to file a formal case to the WTO complaining about the yuan.
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