UK seeks to rally G20 against unfair trade practices

LONDON (Reuters) – British Trade Minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan will push her G20 counterparts on Tuesday to end what she calls market-distorting practices and rally behind reform of the World Trade Organization. trade.

Trevelyan, who took office last month in a cabinet reshuffle, will pick up where her predecessor Liz Truss left off: pushing for a level playing field in international trade as Britain seeks to forging a new post-Brexit role.

“We cannot and will not allow UK businesses that play by the rules to be harmed and weakened by market-distorting practices from other countries,” she said in a statement yesterday. of the G20 trade ministers meeting in Italy.

“Today’s meeting is a great opportunity to rally our G20 partners and build alliances that can defend the global trading system and help bring it into the 21st century.”

After spending years arguing that the freedom to strike free trade deals outside the European Union would be one of the key benefits of Brexit, the government has repeatedly called for global trade rules to be modernized .

Trevelyan will denounce “harmful and distorting” industrial subsidies – a criticism his ministry has previously used to point the finger at China. China is a member of the G20 and is seen by some as benefiting from WTO rules that treat it as a developing economy.

The Italian Prime Minister said on Friday he was confident that the G20 leaders’ meeting at the end of October would result in a strong commitment to reform the WTO.

(Reporting by William James; Editing by Costas Pitas)