US Says WTO Has Become Lower Priority During COVID-19 Response
The struggle the U.S. is having to manage the COVID-19 pandemic is a higher priority than what's happening at the World Trade Organization, said Dennis Shea, U.S. ambassador to the WTO. He noted that the U.S. has a third of the world's reported cases of the disease, and that more Americans have died from COVID-19 than citizens in any other country.
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Shea, who was speaking at a WTO General Council meeting May 15, said, “Once the exigencies of the current crisis subside, the world’s attention will turn to recovery as well as preparation for the next global crisis, including what role the WTO may have in these global endeavors.”
He said the U.S. now recognizes that it's vulnerable because of an overdependence on “a handful of countries” for cheap medical supplies. “We are looking to diversify supply chains and increase manufacturing capacity back home,” he said.
China's ambassador to the WTO, Dr. Zhang Xiangchen, responded, “China believes that global supply chains are shaped by and evolve through their own inherent rules in line with changing circumstances. The government should respect basic economic logics and corporate autonomy in this process.” He said that sentiment against globalization will “do harm to the global economic recovery, especially to vulnerable developing members.”