The future of world trade is about to face a turning point: whether nationalist policies displace an eight-decade shift toward rules-based global commerce.
This week’s biennial World Trade Organization conference in the United Arab Emirates will see its 164 member countries try to reach deals on the fate of the world’s fish stocks, the future of digital trade and how countries can safeguard their food security.
But agreement on any of those issues may not be enough to salvage a global institution that is increasingly torn apart by the conflicting goals of its members, economic fragmentation fueled by Russia’s war in Ukraine and retreating American leadership on global trade.
“You could put the world's greatest matchmaker, arbiter and negotiator in charge of the WTO right now and I don't think much could happen,” said Rufus Yerxa, a former U.S. trade official who was a WTO deputy director from 2005 to 2013.
The failure of WTO member countries to produce anything meaningful at the group’s 13th Ministerial Conference could further erode the Geneva-based organization's ability to create new global trade rules and prevent a world in which competing economic blocs cause higher prices for consumers and businesses.
"There are so many things that could go badly at the ministerial for global trade and economic growth, and the question is whether enough WTO members can do damage control and curb some of their protectionist and populist leanings," said Christine McDaniel, a former Treasury, White House, Commerce Department and USTR economist now at the Mercatus Center, a free market think tank.
The United States, one of the main architects of the WTO system last century, increasingly questions the organization’s underlying structure. Two decades after shepherding China into the WTO, U.S. leaders of both parties accuse the organization of doing little to bring Beijing’s economic system in line with fair and open global trade.
“For decades, the United States has been proud to champion the international rules-based order and the multilateral trading system,” said U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai last fall in a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “But the functioning and fairness of this order are now in question.”
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World trade cooperation will be put to the test in Abu Dhabi
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The future of world trade is about to face a turning point: whether nationalist policies displace an eight-decade shift toward rules-based global commerce.
This week’s biennial World Trade Organization conference in the United Arab Emirates will see its 164 member countries try to reach deals on the fate of the world’s fish stocks, the future of digital trade and how countries can safeguard their food security.
But agreement on any of those issues may not be enough to salvage a global institution that is increasingly torn apart by the conflicting goals of its........
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