|
Alan Wolff is a deputy director-general at the World Trade Organization in Geneva, and last Friday morning, he was the featured speaker at a GBD event on the WTO. "The Outlook for the WTO After Buenos Aires" was the title he gave for his remarks, and he didn't make the audience wait for the core of his assessment. He led off with it. Here again is today's quote and a little of what followed it:
I left Buenos Aires feeling very upbeat about the future of the WTO and the world trading system it embodies.
What I want to cover with you this morning are two fundamental reasons for my feeling of exuberance after MC11, the WTO Ministerial at Buenos Aires, and to give you a measure of the challenges that lie ahead.
The first reason for feeling as positive as I did was personal experience - derived from the activities with which I was directly involved in BA. The second reason for feeling very good about MC11 concerns the outlook for the world trading system.
There isn't room here for the full speech, but you can read it or listen to it at
Geneva Message, which is the page of the GBD website devoted to last Friday's discussion. That said, we do want to share a little more here, namely these three points.
On Accessions. The WTO division that deals with accessions is one of those that report to Deputy Director-General Wolff. So it is not surprising that some of his meetings in Buenos Aires dealt with the aspirations of countries that are not yet members of the WTO. As he explained:
I also met with delegations from Belarus, Iraq and others seeking to accede to the WTO.
At a time when there had been earlier in 2017 rumors of a major member looking for the exit, listening to countries who see the benefits of integration into the global trading system, for their economic development, is, frankly, inspiring.
The Leading Countries. As for the conduct of the major players, Ambassador Wolff, himself a former Deputy U.S. Trade Representative, was clearly encouraged by the conduct of the United States, both at the ministerial and afterwards. "Why did I leave Buenos Aires feeling exuberant?" he asked. His answer:
Part of it was the participation of a number of forward leaning countries.
First and foremost, the U.S. was there, was engaged constructively. That this would be so was an unknown before BA. The U.S. has been the prime architect, builder, and guarantor of the multilateral trading system. The importance of its participation cannot be overstated.
Amb. Lighthizer opened with a statement that was very well received, although it described his views on the need for reform - on self-designation as a developing country with the consequence of accepting a lesser level of obligations, on dispute settlement that yields results that negotiations could not, on the need for transparency and living up to existing WTO commitments.
And on summing up MC11 at its conclusion, the U.S. view he articulated was that the Conference was a success, and that the U.S. was looking forward to participating in discussions to improve E-Commerce, among other possibilities.
There is now a clear path forward to restore the negotiating function to the WTO ... .
And that path is the path of plurilaterals - agreements driven by those with the greatest stake in the issue - from fisheries to e-commerce - and a willingness to forge new disciplines and foster greater openness, through agreements that are open to all. Over the next several weeks, we shall look at some of those areas. Doubtless in doing so, we shall occasionally look back and borrow a line or two from Alan Wolff's GBD speech on February 9.
The Engagement Challenge. To the extent that Ambassador Wolff talked about unmet challenges - and he talked about several -- the most critical, as least as we heard him, was the challenge of engagement. It is a challenge that can be seen within the membership of the WTO and perhaps more importantly in their constituents. He noted for example that, among the members, the United States is no longer leading on the range of issues it once championed, and initiatives like the Environmental Goods Agreement are floundering as a result. Worse, no other country or group of countries has really stepped up to fill that role.
In his conclusion, Ambassador Wolff focused on the traders rather than the rule makers. He said:
It is now up to the private sector, including not only business but also others, to give shape and impetus to governments improving the world trading system. What is at stake is enormous. The role of the private sector will determine what can be achieved.
Before MC11, I do not know of a single CEO of any company in any country that called upon his country's president to accomplish more at Buenos Aires. I do not know of any country's president calling another country's president to foster an ambitious outcome - other than the host, President Macri of Argentina. It is no excuse that the table was not set with rich multilateral agreements ready for signature, because the private sector and the member governments as a whole simply did not prepare for results of that kind.
In Berlin, three weeks ago, I was asked what was one thing that would make the most difference for making improvements in the world trading system, and I answered "ENGAGEMENT". The people in this room, the companies and governments that they represent, and those like them, can make the difference going forward.
|
