Ken Heydon is a former Australian trade official and senior member of the OECD Secretariat, and Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His latest boook is The Trade Weapon: How Weaponizing Trade Threatens Growth, Public Health and the Climate.
If the talks fail, Taiwan could adopt WTO panel filings and India could take the case to the Appellate Body of WTO, which hasn t been functional for nearly two years due to the US blocking the appointment of judges. India has appealed against the ruling in its dispute with Japan and the EU. The dispute was filed in 2019 when the three members had challenged the import duty of 7.5%-later increased to 15%-levied by India in 2017. India further raised the duty to 20%. The duties were to boost local manufacturing.
Failure to strengthen the trading system and the liberal order that underpins it puts at risk three decades of growth and development made possible by globalisation.
In 2019, Australia, Brazil and Guatemala had filed a case against India at the WTO alleging that the export subsidies being offered on sugar were violative of WTO norms.