Global Deal Shows “Coming Alive” of WTO

The World Trade Organization surprised the world and itself with a new global agreement. After multiple failures in the past decade, the organization was given up for dead. “What the world’s trade ministers technically agreed to on Saturday was… a relatively modest package to help businesses get their products through borders more easily,” reports Shawn Donnan of the Financial Times. “For the sake of balance, it contained concessions to the developing world: help for poor countries to meet the new rules; a promise to prioritise a rewriting of the WTO rules on agriculture to better cover government food security programmes; and various pledges to do more to help poor economies gain market access for their exports.” Emerging economies went along after a series of trade deals bypassing the global organization among major economies, including fast-moving negotiations for transatlantic and transpacific deals. Another factor: the skill of WTO Director-General Roberto Azevêdo, described by Donnan and others as the “real hero” behind the pact. Azevêdo closed the meeting by noting, “We have put the ‘world’ back in the World Trade Organisation.” – YaleGlobal