23 WTO Members Including the US, UK, Japan, and Mexico Form Their Own E-Commerce Duty-Free Agreement After Global Talks Collapse

A group of 23 WTO member states, including the US, UK, Japan, and Mexico, agreed among themselves not to impose customs duties on electronic transmissions like digital downloads and streaming, after WTO-wide negotiations in Cameroon collapsed when Brazil and Turkey blocked an extension to the 28-year-old e-commerce moratorium. The bilateral agreement is a workaround to the WTO's consensus requirement, which allows any single member to block a global deal, and covers the signatories only rather than the full 166-member body. The broader membership is expected to revisit the issue at a WTO meeting in Geneva in early May.