#TradeNerdsCorner

1. India has notified WTO members that it exceeded its trade-distorting subsidy entitlement for rice in marketing year 2019/20.

https://docs.wto.org/dol2fe/Pages/SS/directdoc.aspx?filename=q:/G/AG/NIND25.pdf&Open=True

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Developing countries’ limits for trade-distorting farm support = 10% of value of production.

India’s $6.3bn for rice exceeds the $4.6bn limit (10% of $46bn in footnote 2)

This was for buying into food security stocks, so it escapes legal challenge

https://docs.wto.org/dol2fe/Pages/SS/directdoc.aspx?filename=q:/G/AG/NIND25.pdf&Open=True

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#TradeNerdsCorner

2. Did Trump’s subsidies for American farmers exceed US limits in the WTO?

No, says the latest US notification for 2018/19. Total trade-distorting support was $13bn. The limit is $19bn.

Why?

https://docs.wto.org/dol2fe/Pages/SS/directdoc.aspx?filename=q:/G/AG/NUSA150.pdf&Open=True

3/4

Dig deeper. "Green Box" (“criteria in Annex 2”), supposedly non-distorting and therefore allowed without limit.

“Domestic food aid”—a whopping $95bn = 84% of the $113 Green Box total = 7.3 times the AMS total

Expect exchanges in the Ag Committee

https://docs.wto.org/dol2fe/Pages/SS/directdoc.aspx?filename=q:/G/AG/NUSA150.pdf&Open=True

4/4

Correction. I think that should be 6 times the AMS total. Never mind. It’s $95bn