The European Union has stepped up efforts to support the World Trade Organization (WTO) during the crisis and amid the escalating trade conflict between the United States and China.
The EU will host trade ministers from the United States and Japan next month in Brussels, in a move to prevent the WTO from turning irrelevant, Bloomberg reports.
Amid growing trade tensions between Washington and Beijing, the very existence of the WTO as an international economic organization is under threat.
The push to reform the WTO has gained urgency as US president Donald Trump and his administration have been openly contemptuous of the trade regulatory body.
There are mounting concerns that the organization could fade into insignificance.
At the meeting, the EU members will unveil a plan to reform the WTO, which is aimed at cutting trade costs. The EU also seeks to improve the WTO's dispute-settlement system and to make the organization wield more power in the international arena.
