US says WTO vaccine talks have resulted in compromise outcome

World Trade Organization members have arrived at a compromise on intellectual property rules for Covid-19 vaccines, the Biden administration said.

While there is no text for an agreement, there is an understanding that offers “the most promising path toward achieving a concrete and meaningful outcome,” Adam Hodge, a spokesman for U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, said in a statement on Tuesday.

The statement came after Politico Pro reported the compromise earlier Tuesday between the European Union, South Afirca, India and the U.S. that covers only vaccines and still requires approval from the EU and WTO members. The USTR statement didn’t provide details of the compromise.

The talks relate to the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights—or TRIPS for short.