Reflecting on this week's panel event with the World Trade Organization’s Director-General, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

Is the current picture for international trade just a pile of risks or also a moment of opportunity? That was the first question we posed to the World Trade Organization’s Director-General when SEC Newgate UK hosted her at our London office this week. 

Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, or Dr. Ngozi as she likes to be known, is one of the most influential global economic leaders of our time, and her wealth of experience was on full display as she shared her thoughts and insights at the standing-room-only event. 

Her answer was a considered mix of realism and optimism, rounded off by a pithy, “I said chill, don’t freeze”. We shouldn’t take a “Pollyanna” principle approach she said, but that it was worth remembering how much international commerce was done with the US (which makes up 13% of global trade) and how much was being done under WTO terms still (75%).

Moreover, she said it was critical to look beyond Trump’s unilateralism to address the US’ long-running criticisms, so as not to waste a crisis. And it is true that for all the shocks and disruption of recent months, dialogue between Washington and scores of other countries has accelerated tackling trade barriers like never before. 

We have seen a myriad of responses from the rest of the world, intensifying trade talks not only with the US but also among themselves, as the rush to diversify and expand gathers pace. And folded into most trade agreements, Dr. Ngozi added, were WTO rules being reinforced at the bilateral level. 

Furthermore, she maintained that even the thorny issue of WTO reform could be put back on the negotiating table with the current US administration. Washington has long felt WTO frameworks and dispute procedures have outgrown their post-war origins in the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference, which also created the IMF and World Bank. 

And she underlined that while the US unilateral approach of blocking the WTO’s Appellate Body - a Trump 1.0 move continued under Biden - was a challenge, Trump 2.0’s dealmaking approach could and should extend to reviving talks within the WTO to make its own negotiations more fit for the future of modern trade. 

The World Trade Organization has long suffered in part from its consensus model of decision-making, with the only significant multilateral agreement in decades coming not on actual trade liberalisation but rather a trade facilitation deal to standardise the simplification of procedures for international trading. It is worth also noting that a deal on tackling fisheries subsidies was struck under Dr. Ngozi’s first term. 

Yet the emergence of a “coalition of the willing” to advance more substantive talks to break down trade barriers has been a feature of the WTO in recent years. This pattern of plurilateralism is one that Dr. Ngozi clearly sees as one worth consolidating and driving forward as part of the WTO reform agenda. The idea is that in areas from e-commerce and services to disciplines on industrial policy and investment for sustainable development, the WTO doesn’t make perfect the enemy of the good and those who want to take forward such agreements can do so without the omnipresent risk of members who are repeat offenders (not, in this case, the US) blocking a global deal. 

So, are we in for some kind of grand Mar-a-Lago accord to remake and refashion the global trading system? Perhaps not in absolute structure, but Dr. Ngozi’s warnings not to waste a crisis have certainly put trade negotiations of all kinds back on centre stage. 

When the WTO convenes in Cameroon for its next big ministerial summit in 2026, we will certainly be able to say that dialogue on trade - even at its most fraught - has kicked the tyres on addressing criticisms of unfairness in the system. A world of more managed trade is upon us, and the need for business to engage with government and those dictating its terms will only continue to grow. 

“Chill, not freeze,” indeed.