China, EU to form group to modernize global trade rules

The vice president of the European Union's governing body says Europe and China will form a group aimed at updating global trade rules to address technology policy, subsidies and other emerging complaints in a bid to preserve support for international commerce.

European Commission Vice President Jyrki Katainen said today that unilateral action by US President Donald Trump in disputes over steel, China's technology policy and other issues highlighted the need to modernize the World Trade Organization to reflect developments in the world economy.

US officials have said the WTO, the Geneva-based arbiter of world trade rules, is bureaucratic and outdated and needs an overhaul.

Katainen said he did not expect negotiations on updating trade rules to be easy but that they were necessary to save the environment for multilateral trade.