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The Trump administration on Friday criticized the World Trade Organization’s compensation structure for appellate body members, laying out a case for potentially blocking the institution’s budget and effectively halting its work starting next year.

Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Dennis Shea said during a meeting in Geneva that the WTO’s compensation structure creates an incentive for appellate body members, who make more than 300,000 Swiss francs ($301,000) a year, to spend more time on their appeal cases in order to receive higher compensation.

“Prolonging the duration of an appeal would appear inconsistent with the objective behind the” WTO’s rule providing for the prompt resolution of disputes, Shea said during Friday’s meeting.

The statement comes 10 days after a U.S. delegate first raised the possibility that the U.S. may block the approval of the institution’s biennial budget for 2020 and 2021, according to people familiar with the matter. Because WTO decisions must be made by a consensus among all 164 members, the U.S.’s blocking maneuver would threaten the proper functioning of the organization responsible for overseeing the rules of global commerce.

To contact the reporter on this story: Bryce Baschuk in Geneva at bbaschuk2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Murray at brmurray@bloomberg.net, Richard Bravo

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