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EXPERT COMMENT

Yet again, a WTO ministerial is being criticized for producing little of substance. But the Organization provides an opportunity for powers like the US, China, EU and India to agree pragmatic ways forward.

4,000 delegates from the WTO’s 166 members met in Abu Dhabi in late February and deliberated for five long days and nights. Tensions flared, with large players – most notably the US and India – flexing their muscles. Ultimately governments failed to agree on much although they did manage, at the last minute, to renew a commitment not to impose tariffs on digital trade for the next two years.

The WTO’s repeated failure to generate new rules has provoked considerable debate about its relevance and a myriad of proposals on how to get its rule-making and dispute settlement system ‘back on track’. 

Commentators look back to a time in the 1990s, when the WTO was founded, global trade rules were generated apace, and major economies ‘played by the rules’. The reality was not that rosy of course. There was contestation, negotiations took time, and arm-twisting behind the scenes was used to land agreements. 

Outcomes were possible because the underlying geopolitics was very different. The US was the pre-eminent global player and it shared a broadly similar vision of what the trading system should look like with other advanced economies – one premised on opening up markets to a liberal economic model, with global rules backed up by an effective enforcement mechanism.

There was always dissent, and advanced economies didn’t always play by the rules. But the underlying distribution of power meant that their views generally carried the day.

Click here to continue reading the full version of this Expert Comment on the Chatham House website.