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Perdue says WTO needs more enforcement

The U.S. Ag Secretary says he wants to see G20 leaders come together to make WTO standards stronger.

“What we were trying to determine is how we can make the WTO more of an organization that truly guides international trade the way it was intended.”

Sonny Perdue says while many countries follow science-based standards that are agreed upon by the WTO, some like China do not.  “They ignore some of the things they want to ignore, create standards of their own that are outside of sound science.”

Agriculture Ministers of G20 countries met in Argentina last week and said they were concerned about increased use of non-tariff protectionist trade barriers and want to reform WTO rules, but did not release a plan on moving forward.