Why the WTO Is Struggling to Adapt
The Association of Foreign Press Correspondents (AFPC-USA) hosted a podcast, in partnership with the Hinrich Foundation, titled, “Why the WTO Is Struggling to Adapt.”
Our guest was Keith Rockwell, Senior Research Fellow at the Hinrich Foundation and former longtime spokesman for the World Trade Organization (WTO), about the mounting crisis facing the global trading system. Drawing on his new white paper, “In dire distress: Modest reforms won’t save the WTO,” Rockwell argues that the institution is at an existential turning point, with core principles such as “most-favoured-nation” (MFN) treatment and consensus decision-making increasingly under strain. The conversation comes as WTO members gather in Cameroon for the organization’s 14th Ministerial Conference (MC14), a meeting where expectations for major breakthroughs are low. Rockwell explains why incremental reforms may not be enough to revive a system rooted in decades-old rules and what that could mean for the future of global trade governance.
The podcast episode was hosted by Roseanne Gerin, an assistant editor at the newsletter International Trade Today, who has worked in journalism for more than 25 years.
This podcast episode was produced in partnership with the Hinrich Foundation. AFPC-USA is solely responsible for the content of this episode. The transcript of this discussion can be found HERE.
Rockwell argued that the crisis did not emerge suddenly but has been “some time in the making.” He pointed to warning signs that began appearing more than a decade ago, particularly when governments started blocking even routine procedural steps, such as approving meeting agendas, simply because they disagreed with items listed on them. What had previously been “a standard clerical procedure” became politicized between 2013 and 2016, something Rockwell described as “a huge red flag.” That breakdown in routine cooperation, he said, helped push members toward alternative negotiating formats such as plurilateral agreements.
Rockwell also traces part of the problem to misconceptions about the WTO itself. Early in its existence, the organization was widely perceived as “this all-powerful, monolithic entity that would be involved in every aspect of our lives,” a characterization he insists “was never the case.” That exaggerated perception fueled “very negative, and I would argue, even paranoid responses” from critics and governments alike, which in turn made it harder for members to guide the institution “in a productive direction.”
When Gerin asked why WTO members cannot even agree on what “reform” means, Rockwell answered: “Trade is political.” He explained that countries approach reform through fundamentally different lenses, particularly when it comes to development. Some developing nations believe the WTO best serves them by exempting them from its rules indefinitely, a position Rockwell suggests raises an obvious question about “what the point of belonging to the WTO is.” Another contentious issue is the organization’s consensus decision-making system. While every member supports consensus because it protects national interests, Rockwell said it has increasingly been misused as a blocking tool. When countries employ consensus not to safeguard their rights but to halt negotiations they are not even participating in, he said it “becomes a distortion of what it was intended to be.” He predicts consensus will never be abandoned entirely, but insists it must be modified so it does not paralyze the institution.
Gerin asked about the deeper institutional roots of the WTO’s dysfunction, noting that many of its structures date back to 1947 and the original General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) system, which was designed for a small group of 23 relatively like-minded countries operating through informal diplomacy. Rockwell, however, said that the most significant shift occurred not in 1947 but with the creation of the WTO itself in the mid-1990s, when the organization transformed from a primarily diplomatic forum into a legally binding system. Ironically, he notes, the United States pushed hardest for this legal structure, but the change had major consequences. Negotiations became “much more hardline,” and members could no longer easily “fudge things” through informal compromise.
The legal structure also encouraged governments to pursue policy goals through litigation rather than negotiation. Countries began filing disputes to “legislate through the judiciary,” seeking outcomes they could not secure at the negotiating table. This shift intensified tensions around ambiguous provisions in the rulebook, particularly Article 21, the national security exception. Rockwell explains that the clause was intentionally written in vague terms, a traditional diplomatic tactic allowing both sides to claim victory in negotiations. But that ambiguity now creates a structural dilemma: if the WTO rules against a major power on national security grounds, it risks appearing to dictate a superpower’s national interests; yet if countries invoke the exception loosely (for example claiming that “paperclips are something that our national security hinges on”) it could blow “a hole in the rulebook through which [one] could drive a truck.” He observed that when disputes were managed by diplomats, ambiguity made compromise possible. But in a system dominated by legal interpretations, those same ambiguities can produce rigid conflicts that are far harder to resolve.
Keith Rockwell
When asked why expectations for MC14 have been so low and what it can realistically achieve, Rockwell said it’s because the issues involved are deeply political and structurally complex. He notes that Petter Ølberg, the envoy responsible for reform discussions, had already signaled months earlier that “we’re not going to get breakthroughs in Yaoundé on reform.” The core disputes — such as special and differential treatment for developing countries, the consensus decision-making system, and the national security exception — are fundamental disagreements among members. According to Rockwell, “these are huge political issues” that “are not going to be sorted out in Yaoundé, and everyone knows this.”
Instead, he says observers should focus on more limited deliverables, particularly in the area of digital trade and e-commerce. Rockwell explains that 72 WTO members have already negotiated a set of global rules for digital trade, with an agreed text completed about a year earlier. The challenge now is how to incorporate those rules into the WTO’s formal structure. One option is inserting the agreement through “Annex IV,” a technical mechanism that would formally embed the deal within the WTO framework. But doing so would require consensus, and India — along with South Africa — has been blocking the move. A similar deadlock surrounds another agreement involving 128 countries on Investment Facilitation for Development. Despite broad support, a small number of members have prevented the deal from being incorporated into the rulebook. Frustration with these blockages has led some members to consider a more confrontational approach: implementing the agreements anyway and essentially telling opponents, “Try and stop us.” Rockwell stresses that such a move would be unprecedented, and the consequences for the WTO system are uncertain, but the discussion reflects growing impatience with countries blocking deals that would not even apply to them.
Another key issue at MC14 involves the longstanding moratorium on tariffs for electronic transmissions, which has been in place since 1998. Under this arrangement, digital products — such as data flows, music downloads, and movies — are not subject to customs duties. While the moratorium has been renewed repeatedly for nearly three decades, some countries now want to end it. The United States has been pushing strongly to preserve it, even leveraging bilateral trade agreements to pressure countries like Malaysia and Indonesia, warning them that attempts to block the moratorium could jeopardize those agreements. Still, Rockwell says making the moratorium permanent is “a long shot,” though a compromise extension — perhaps six years — might be possible. The ministerial’s success will be judged not by sweeping reforms but by whether it can produce a handful of incremental outcomes. If members manage to advance the digital trade agreement, maintain the e-commerce moratorium, and move forward on plurilateral initiatives, it would demonstrate that the WTO can still “deliver, albeit in a somewhat modest fashion.” Beyond that, another positive outcome would be agreement on a process for continuing reform discussions, even if members cannot yet resolve the underlying disputes.
Rockwell drew attention to a potentially important development happening on the sidelines of the ministerial: meetings between European Union (EU) ministers and ministers from the 12 countries in the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). Together, he notes, these two blocs represent 39 relatively like-minded countries that broadly share priorities on issues such as digital trade, services trade, and trade-and-environment policies. While these discussions are exploratory, Rockwell suggests they could signal a growing shift toward coalitions of willing countries moving ahead together. If the ministerial itself fails to produce meaningful results — if things, as he puts it, “go pear-shaped” — then groupings like these could “gain momentum” and accelerate cooperation outside the WTO’s traditional consensus framework.
On the subject of what gaps in WTO rules China exposes, Rockwell said China’s growth in trade, manufacturing, and overall economic output far exceeded expectations, propelling it to the top of global trade and manufacturing rankings far faster than anyone predicted. This transformation has had significant positive effects, describing China’s poverty reduction as “the greatest story of developmental policy success in history.” Yet the same growth has also produced major distortions in global markets, particularly through large-scale industrial overcapacity. Rockwell points to sectors such as steel, solar panels, and now electric vehicles, where massive production has created downward pressure on global prices and competition for other economies. The deeper challenge lies in how China’s political-economic system fits into WTO rules. China’s economy is heavily influenced by the Chinese Communist Party, which effectively directs economic activity but is not technically classified as the government under standard WTO legal definitions. That ambiguity surfaced prominently in disputes over whether certain Chinese entities qualify as “public bodies” under subsidy rules — a seemingly technical legal issue that, in practice, exposed gaps in the WTO’s ability to regulate state-driven economic models.
He went on to say that China’s system also involves market-access conditions that require foreign firms to invest locally, commit specific levels of capital, and hire Chinese workers if they want to operate in the country. He notes that similar industrial policy approaches are now appearing elsewhere, including in the EU, as governments attempt to compete in sectors shaped by large-scale state intervention. On one hand, China’s model “is not something that has been used before” and is difficult to regulate under existing trade rules. On the other hand, the results of that system — particularly its economic expansion and poverty reduction — have been “really quite astonishing.” In some ways, China has become “a victim of its own success,” with its unprecedented rise revealing structural weaknesses in the WTO’s rulebook.
Rockwell said the United States has attempted to reshape the global trading system, pointing to initiatives such as the agreement with the EU reached in Scotland, which the administration has dubbed the “Turnberry Round.” However, he notes that other countries have not followed the US lead in retreating from broader trade liberalization. While many governments have signed bilateral agreements with the US, largely because of its economic importance, they have not reduced trade with other partners in response. Instead, Rockwell observes the opposite trend: many countries are expanding their trade relationships elsewhere. For example, the EU has recently concluded trade negotiations with Australia, India, and Mercosur — moves designed to “deepen and broaden their trading relations” with those partners. Similar dynamics are playing out globally, including the exploratory cooperation between the EU and CPTPP countries, which together represent 39 nations seeking closer coordination. Many governments are responding to US protectionism by lowering barriers among themselves and strengthening alternative trading networks. At the same time, the shift in US policy has forced governments and companies to reassess supply chains and trading relationships to ensure they remain stable in an environment of policy volatility.
The uncertainty created by US tariff policy was particularly damaging. Rockwell described a hypothetical scenario in which trading partners are suddenly hit with “Liberation Day” tariffs of 40% or 50%, negotiate those tariffs down to 15% through a trade deal, and then see the policy overturned by the US Supreme Court. For foreign governments and companies trying to plan their business operations, such abrupt changes raise a fundamental question: “What are you to decide?” As Rockwell puts it, if you are a company trading with the United States, “how can you do that?” The resulting policy instability creates “debilitating” uncertainty for partners and investors alike. Despite all this, the broader global trading system has remained surprisingly resilient. Rather than leading to widespread protectionism, the main structural change he sees is “in the direction of greater trade openness” among countries seeking alternatives to the US market. Many countries initially expected a shift back toward traditional trade policy when Joe Biden took office in 2021, but that expectation proved misplaced. According to Rockwell, Biden largely maintained many of the restrictions introduced during Donald Trump’s first term, including policies directed at China, the EU, and other trading partners. At the WTO specifically, Rockwell characterizes the Biden administration’s approach as “benign neglect” — adding that he is “being charitable” with that description. One example, he says, was the US decision to effectively abandon the digital trade negotiations, despite having originally been “the principal demandeur” pushing for those talks.
When Trump returned to office, many governments expected a continuation of the earlier trade policies, though Rockwell says few anticipated the scale or intensity of what followed. As a result, countries have been searching for ways to move forward with trade cooperation even without full US participation, though he acknowledges that doing so “without the United States is tricky,” especially within the WTO framework. At the same time, Rockwell argues that the US has not abandoned the WTO entirely. In fact, he notes that Washington has withdrawn from 66 other international organizations, but remains formally engaged in the WTO. The US has continued to pay its membership dues, and it has appointed senior, experienced officials to leadership roles, including Joseph Barloon as Ambassador to the WTO and Jennifer “DJ” Nordquist as Deputy Director-General in Geneva. In Rockwell’s view, these moves signal that the US still sees value in the institution, even if its policy positions remain controversial.
The MFN principle requires WTO members to extend any tariff or market-access advantage offered to one country to all other members. Gerin noted that this rule has been foundational since 1947, but asked Rockwell why it is now facing such intense scrutiny, particularly in Washington and Brussels. To that, he said that when China joined the WTO in 2001, it did so as a developing country, and therefore entered under relatively favorable tariff commitments. Its average tariff rates — about 9% for industrial goods and 15% for agricultural goods — were already quite low for a developing economy, and China has since reduced many of them further. However, from the perspective of the United States and the EU, the situation now appears increasingly incongruous. China is today “the second-largest economy in the world,” with the world’s largest army and the largest manufacturing base, yet it continues to benefit from tariff arrangements originally negotiated when it was far less economically powerful. For Western policymakers, Rockwell says, the idea that such a country still enjoys these advantages “seems a little bit awkward, to say the least.”
Rockwell also emphasizes that MFN has already been gradually weakened over time. The principle has been “punched” with exceptions through the expansion of bilateral and regional trade agreements, which allow participating countries to grant preferential terms to each other while excluding others. In addition, special preference programs for developing countries have further diluted the universal application of MFN. As a result, the rule has increasingly been applied “sort of sporadically” rather than strictly across the entire trading system. At the same time, Rockwell notes that recent proposals — particularly from the United States — could move even further away from MFN by creating different tariff arrangements for different countries. He points out that the various trade deals Washington has negotiated now contain distinct tariff structures, a development that introduces major practical complications. More broadly, he said that the global trading system was originally designed to ensure “transparency, stability, and predictability.” Yet the current proliferation of country-specific tariffs and exceptions undermines those goals. As he puts it, “none of [those qualities] we have right now because of what’s going on.” Despite the criticism coming from Washington and Brussels, however, Rockwell says many other countries remain reluctant to abandon MFN entirely.
Rockwell said the US challenge to MFN (Barloon has argued that MFN prevents countries from “optimizing their trade relationships), is “the most controversial element” among the reform ideas coming from the United States. While other issues — such as consensus decision-making, national security exceptions, and special treatment for developing countries — have attracted some support from other WTO members, the push to rethink MFN is far more divisive. Even though the EU trade commissioner has suggested some openness to discussing it, Rockwell notes that this position “is not quite the same as the hard line taken by the US.” A number of recent US bilateral trade agreements were implemented through executive orders rather than the normal legislative process, meaning they were adopted without congressional approval, consultation with business groups, or the procedural steps typically required to create trade law. As a result, their durability is uncertain. If a future president chooses to reverse them, “what is the status of these deals?” Rockwell asks, suggesting that their long-term legitimacy could be questionable.
Another structural issue, he explains, is that US tariffs were already extremely low before the recent wave of protectionist measures, averaging around 2.5% at the WTO. Because American tariffs are already so low, Washington has limited room to make further cuts in negotiations. By contrast, other countries retain far greater flexibility. Rockwell points to India’s average agricultural tariff of about 112%, which he describes as “a prohibitive tariff.” The imbalance makes it difficult for the US to secure additional concessions using traditional negotiating tools.
He then addressed the current debate within the historical context of the Uruguay Round negotiations, which created the WTO in the 1990s. At the time, the major negotiating powers were essentially four entities: the United States, the EU, Japan, and Canada. China had not yet joined the organization, and countries like India and Brazil played more limited roles, with India focused largely on textiles and Brazil primarily on agriculture. During those negotiations, the US concentrated heavily on expanding global trade in services and strengthening intellectual property protections — two areas where it held clear competitive advantages. Those efforts were highly successful. The US now enjoys more than US$500 billion in trade surplus in services, while American companies collect significant royalties and licensing fees worldwide from patents and intellectual property, thanks in large part to WTO rules. Because of those benefits, Rockwell suggests that the economic importance of the WTO is sometimes underappreciated in political debates. Even if political leaders do not emphasize it, he says key sectors of the US economy — including Silicon Valley, Hollywood, and Wall Street — clearly recognize how valuable these international frameworks are.
The strongest argument for reform is simply “paralysis — negotiating paralysis,” said Rockwell. Since the WTO’s creation, the organization has managed to produce very few multilateral agreements, with notable examples including the elimination of agricultural export subsidies and parts of the fisheries subsidies negotiations. Even those limited successes remain fragile; Rockwell said that the fisheries deal itself could collapse within a few years if negotiations are not completed. If the organization cannot produce new agreements, governments will begin asking whether it still serves a meaningful purpose. This gridlock helped trigger the rise of plurilateral initiatives, where groups of willing countries negotiate agreements among themselves rather than waiting for consensus among all 166 members. These initiatives gained momentum after the 2017 Buenos Aires Ministerial Conference, when frustration grew over countries blocking negotiations on issues such as investment rules, e-commerce, and policies affecting small and medium-sized enterprises. In response, many governments essentially decided “we’re going to do this ourselves.” In several cases, Rockwell notes, these initiatives involve a majority of WTO members, and the agreements themselves are already completed. The challenge now is incorporating them into the formal WTO framework. In some areas — such as domestic regulation in services — countries can amend their own commitments without needing unanimous approval. But for agreements like investment facilitation and e-commerce, consensus is still required, meaning a small number of countries can prevent the deals from being formally adopted.
On whether plurilateral agreements could realistically become a path forward for the organization. Rockwell said these are not a new concept within the WTO system. He points to the Information Technology Agreement, negotiated in 1996 and expanded in 2015, which eliminated tariffs on a wide range of tech products and covered hundreds of billions of dollars in trade. Those deals succeeded largely because they involved changes to countries’ tariff schedules, which governments can amend individually without being blocked by other members. However, when plurilaterals move beyond tariffs to address new trade rules, the process becomes more complicated because integrating those rules into the WTO framework typically requires broader approval. This challenge is especially relevant for current plurilateral negotiations on e-commerce and investment facilitation, which have already produced completed agreements among participating members. The key question now, Rockwell says, is how proponents will try to insert these deals into the WTO rulebook. He admits that the answer remains unclear and will likely become a central issue in the coming days of the ministerial. One factor influencing the debate is the weakened WTO dispute settlement system, which makes enforcement uncertain. Rockwell also questions whether countries opposing the deals — particularly India — would realistically pursue legal action against such a large coalition of participants.
Rockwell argued that a deeper alignment between the EU and the 12 members of the CPTPP could be forged in the event the WTO proves incapable of delivering reforms. Together, these economies represent a large and economically advanced group with shared interests in expanding trade rules in areas that the WTO has struggled to address, including digital trade. Rockwell explains that both blocs already have experience negotiating rules in these areas: digital trade provisions were developed within the TPP framework, and the EU has negotiated similar provisions in its bilateral agreements with CPTPP countries. Because of this alignment, he suggests they could potentially reach new agreements relatively quickly.
If such a coalition were to formalize common rules, Rockwell said, those standards could become the “de facto global standard.” Even without universal participation, other countries would likely adopt those rules simply to maintain access to these large markets. He compares this dynamic to regulatory influence exercised by major jurisdictions such as California in the United States, whose standards often shape national policy, or the EU, which has long set global norms in areas like digital regulation, environmental standards, and food safety. Businesses and governments around the world frequently adopt EU rules because they must comply with them to access the European market. This type of external rulemaking can create political tension. He points to post-Brexit debates in the United Kingdom, where some policymakers have expressed frustration about having to follow EU regulations without participating in their creation. In contrast, he argues that the WTO traditionally offered countries “a seat at the table” in shaping global trade rules. But if WTO members continue “throwing sand in the gears” of the institution, he warns, countries will increasingly seek alternative forums and coalitions to advance trade governance outside the WTO framework.
Gerin later raised a critique from former WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy, who has expressed skepticism about the idea of an EU-CPTPP alignment becoming the new center of global trade rulemaking. Lamy’s concern is that such an arrangement would largely exclude Africa, a region whose economic importance is expected to grow rapidly. Rockwell said that Lamy’s point is significant. He notes that Africa is projected to be the fastest-growing continent, making its exclusion from major trade governance discussions problematic. While the CPTPP is geographically focused on the Pacific, Rockwell points out that membership has already expanded beyond strict geography — the United Kingdom joined despite not being a Pacific country. That precedent suggests that, if a broader EU-CPTPP coalition gained momentum, African countries could potentially be invited to participate. Still, he acknowledges that interest from African governments might vary. South Africa, the continent’s most advanced economy, has shown little interest in participating in such initiatives. Rockwell recounts a remark from a South African trade lawyer who explained the country’s caution with a memorable line: “If you’re not at the table, you’re probably on the menu.” The comment reflects the concern that countries outside major trade negotiations risk having rules written about them rather than with them.
All of these issues are layered and complex and can be confusing for journalists, and Rockwell said those who cover US trade policy and global economic governance most often misunderstand trade in services and intellectual property. Discussions of global trade tend to focus heavily on goods — manufacturing, tariffs, and physical exports — while overlooking services, even though most workers in developed economies, including the United States, are employed in service industries. Measuring services trade is more complicated than tracking physical goods, but the tools used to measure it are improving. As digital technologies expand — especially with developments such as AI-generated services — Rockwell expects the value of services trade to grow dramatically. Intellectual property is often portrayed in the media primarily through controversies, such as debates over vaccine patents during the COVID-19 pandemic. In reality, he says, the WTO’s Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement was designed as a careful balance between protecting innovation and allowing governments flexibility during public health emergencies. While IP rules can become politically charged, he argues that the system has generally functioned effectively. During the pandemic, for example, the early debate about patents occurred before vaccines even existed, meaning the real bottleneck was scientific development rather than intellectual property protections. Digital commerce and innovation play an increasingly central role in international trade, so he recommended brushing up on these two topics would greatly enhance journalists’ understanding of trade policy.
He further emphasized an often overlooked function of the WTO: its day-to-day institutional work. While much of the public discussion focuses on stalled negotiations or the weakened dispute settlement system, he argues that the WTO still plays a crucial role as a forum for routine transparency and information sharing among governments. Rockwell said the organization’s regular committee meetings allow member countries to exchange information about their trade policies, including new regulations, standards, and policy changes that could affect international commerce. This type of ongoing dialogue is essential for maintaining a functioning global trading system and can only really happen within the WTO framework. Even as negotiations and dispute resolution have struggled, this behind-the-scenes work continues. However, Rockwell warned that the system is facing a serious transparency problem, particularly when it comes to governments fulfilling their obligation to notify the WTO about changes to their trade regimes. These notifications are meant to keep other countries informed about policies such as tariffs, regulations, and subsidies. In practice, compliance has been poor. Rockwell notes that fewer than half of WTO members have submitted the required notifications, and when it comes to subsidies, the figure drops to less than one-third.
Rockwell believes one of the most important dynamics to monitor is how countries outside the United States are deepening trade partnerships with each other. As Washington adopts a more protectionist approach, many governments are responding not by closing their markets, but by strengthening trade ties elsewhere. He expects this trend — countries “partnering up” through bilateral and regional agreements — to continue, often without US participation. At the same time, he argues that developments in US domestic politics will be critical. Rockwell points to the upcoming midterm elections and asks what position the Democratic Party will ultimately take on trade policy. Some long-standing anti-trade advocacy groups, he notes, have recently begun criticizing tariffs as regressive policies that disproportionately hurt lower-income consumers — arguments economists have made for decades. This shift suggests that attitudes toward protectionism could be changing.
Another key uncertainty involves the durability of the bilateral trade deals negotiated during the Trump administration. Rockwell questions their long-term legal status because many were implemented through executive actions rather than formal congressional approval. That means a future administration could potentially revisit or renegotiate them. In fact, he suggests a new administration might enter negotiations from a strong position by telling partners it is willing to revisit the terms. If that happens, the United States could also return to the WTO and push for institutional reforms, possibly offering concessions of its own. For now, however, Rockwell says the trajectory remains uncertain.
Rockwell recommended journalists read the writings of foundational economic thinkers such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo, particularly the concept of comparative advantage — the idea that countries benefit by specializing in the goods or services where they create the most value, even if they could theoretically produce everything themselves more efficiently. Rockwell notes that this principle can be counterintuitive, which makes it difficult to communicate to the public — even highly educated audiences. Understanding trade policy also requires examining legal and constitutional frameworks, he adds. In the United States, Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution clearly assigns Congress authority over trade policy. Yet Rockwell observes that Congress has historically guarded this power closely, while in recent years it has largely ceded that authority to the executive branch. For journalists covering trade, he suggests that examining this shift — along with broader economic trends such as negative net migration in the US — could provide valuable context for understanding how trade policy is evolving. He believes journalists need to invest the time to understand the economics, law, and politics behind trade, because the issues shaping the global trading system are complex — and increasingly central to international affairs.
Rockwell framed the WTO as a “global public good,” saying it provides a forum where countries can exchange information, resolve disputes, and negotiate new trade rules. These functions are essential for managing the complex relationships that underpin global commerce. Yet in recent years, the WTO has struggled to fully perform those roles, largely because of the political and institutional tensions discussed throughout the conversation. Despite these difficulties, Rockwell said the current crisis could eventually produce an opportunity for renewal. Periods of disruption sometimes create the conditions for reform. He speculates that in a few years, governments might return to the table with a renewed willingness to compromise — perhaps extending “an olive branch” and attempting to rebuild cooperation in a different way. What’s clear to him is that losing the WTO would be a serious setback. To illustrate the point, Rockwell cited Robert Lighthizer, the US trade representative during Trump’s first term, who once remarked that “if the WTO didn’t exist, we’d have to invent it.” Even critics of the organization recognize that a global system for managing trade disputes and rules is necessary. In Rockwell’s view, the United States is not trying to destroy the WTO; rather, it is arguing that the institution is no longer “fit for purpose” and needs reform. Washington has put forward several reform proposals as part of that effort.
The challenges facing the organization are not unique; many multilateral institutions are experiencing similar pressures. International organizations across Geneva and elsewhere are confronting shrinking budgets, layoffs, and declining political support. For a city like Geneva, which has long depended on the presence of international organizations, this contraction has been particularly noticeable. Governments may only now be realizing the value of the multilateral institutions they once took for granted, he pointed out. Rockwell’s hope is that the current turmoil might encourage policymakers to rethink how those institutions function.
