In the end, officials from the major economies agreed to eliminate tariffs on more than 200 items over time, including advanced microchips, Global Positioning System devices, printer ink cartridges, videogame consoles and magnetic resonance imaging machines, which face tariffs of up to 8% in the countries involved.
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The World Trade Organization on Friday announced that it has finalized its first tariff cutting deal in eighteen years.
The Information Technology Agreement (ITA) is exclusively a tariff cutting mechanism, which was finalised in 1997 and covers 80 WTO members.
According to the U.S. Trade Representative, more than $100bn worth of U.S. tech products would be covered by the updated framework, including exports from tech giants Microsoft, Intel, Texas Instruments, and General Electric.
“The trade covered in this agreement is comparable to annual global trade in iron, steel, textiles and clothing combined”, he said. Froman’s office says the deal will support 60,000 American jobs.
While not all WTO members participated in these negotiations, all will benefit from the outcome, noted Azevêdo, because the participants will scrap duties on imports of these products regardless of which WTO member has produced them.
Forty-nine countries have reached a deal to cut tariffs on around 200 technology products, a decision that could pave the way for lower prices for consumers. The breakthrough occurred when the U.S. and China worked out most of their differences during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Washington last November.
WTO negotiators will now spend several months hammering out the technical details and the timetable for tariff elimination.
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WTO member states are expected to take until December to agree on technical details and a schedule for eliminating the tariffs.
