The G7 reiterated its commitment to “free and fair” international trade on Sunday, condemning Russian pressure on Ukraine’s wheat exports and recent restrictions on imports of products from the Sea of Japan, without naming China.
The trade ministers of the main industrialized democracies, meeting this weekend in Osaka, in western Japan, have highlighted “the fundamental need for fair competition in international trade relations” and the importance of a “system free and fair trade based on the rule of law”.
In particular, they “deplored and condemned Russia’s destruction of Ukraine’s grain export infrastructure” after Moscow refused in July to renew an agreement allowing Kiev to export its grains, crucial for to world food security, and bomb Ukraine’s grain and port infrastructure.
The G7 ministers (France, Japan, United States, Canada, Germany, Italy, United Kingdom) also called for “the immediate repeal of all measures that unnecessarily restrict trade”, particularly imports of Japanese food products, aimed at Unnamed Beijing and Moscow. they.
China and Russia recently suspended imports of products from the Sea of Japan due to Tokyo’s dumping of water into the sea from the site of the tsunami-ravaged Fukushima Daiichi power plant (northeast Japan) in 2011.
“It is important that food import restrictions are based on scientific data” and meet international standards, the G7 said, while the Fukushima water spill was validated by the International Food Agency Water, Atomic Energy (IAEA).
Discussions during the two-day summit also focused more generally on “economic coercion” and anti-competitive practices through which some countries use economic sanctions to pressure others, again a veiled allusion to China .
The G7, whose countries want to reduce their dependence on imports, especially from China and Russia, also stressed the “need to continue efforts to establish resilient and reliable supply chains for essential goods such as critical minerals, semiconductors and batteries.
Debates over the weekend also focused on food security, climate change and reform of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
