WASHINGTON, United States, March 31, 2026 (BSS/AFP) - US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on Monday lambasted the World Trade Organization after high-level talks ended with a failure to extend a years-long ban on customs duties for e-commerce. As a result of the failure to agree on e-commerce duties, a WTO moratorium that since 1998 has exempted cross-border digital transmissions from duties expired Monday. It does not mean tariffs will automatically be imposed, but it deals a heavy blow to developed countries and the United States in particular. For nearly three decades, every WTO ministerial -- its biennial decision-making body -- has negotiated extending the moratorium exempting electronic transmissions from customs duties. The United States identified Brazil and Turkey as the countries that blocked the extension at the meeting in Cameroon.
