Our impression is that Mr. Stewart is someone who believes in the fundamental value of the World Trade Organization, who believes that the current U.S. Trade Representative shares that view, and whose criticisms are the opposite of a condemnation. They are a plea for reform. Again, Mr. Stewart:
[I]t is not a correct reading of the actions of the United States to suggest that the U.S. is not supportive of the WTO.
An organization that sovereign states subscribe to and adhere to and that can address a rapidly changing world environment for the benefit of all participants is what the WTO is supposed to be.
Our own view is a little different – not contrary, but different. We have a wry mantra which comes to the fore every now and then when we think about the Global Business Dialogue, which may be the world’s smallest trade-related organization. The mantra is:
It is what it is. But what is it?
We would suggest that the WTO would do well to ask itself the same question. And there is a sense in which it is doing so. Today is the last day of the WTO 2019 Public Forum in Geneva. As Exhibit A on the issue of change and the WTO, we call your attention Director-General Azevêdo’s remarks at the welcoming ceremony on Monday. The theme for this year’s Forum is “Trading Forward: Adapting to a Changing World.” Mr. Azevêdo picked up on it saying:
This year’s theme … [is] about how we need to change — and by “we” I mean the WTO as well.
He followed that with a list, a valid list of anticipated technological advances and future challenges, but for us, there was something missing. That something is the profound change in the trading world that has occurred over the last few decades. Essentially, the first article of the GATT has lost much of its meaning. Article I enshrines the idea that all of the signatories will be treated alike, that a concession to one is a concession to all.
Consider for a moment the last few entries in these pages. In the last two, representatives from the U.S. wheat and pork sectors expressed relief that, with the new U.S.-Japan agreement, they would be on the same footing, face the same tariffs, in Japan as their competitors from Australia and Canada. Those differentials, of course, arose from the new CP-TPP, one of the hundreds of bilateral and regional preferential agreements of the last few decades. Contrast that with the situation in,say, 1980 when all of those countries would have been on an equal footing in any and all of the markets of the others. The world in which the WTO operates is profoundly different from the one in which it – or at least the GATT – was created. And it has still not explicitly come to grips with that reality.
The fact that the world around it has changed so dramatically over the years is one reason why the WTO and its members should take a fresh look at the question, What is it? -- which is to say, what is it now?
In the same vein, the time has come for the organization to squarely address the consequences of the creation of the WTO itself. One of these is the tendency to look for guidance beyond the membership. It may be, as the Director General told the Public Forum earlier this week that
[M]embers cannot find the answers by themselves.
Interacting with representatives from civil society, academia, and the private sector this week will help clarify issues, risks and opportunities.
Perhaps, but it is not at all clear how that underlying philosophy affects the commitment of WTO members to the organization. Bear in mind, most of them are nation states which see the brokering of interests more as a task for national politics than for global institutions.