MESSAGE
| DATE | 2020-05-15 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] WTO head resigns... now it gets interesting
|
wsj.com
WTO Chief to Step Down One Year Early
Laurence Norman and Stephen Fidler
4-5 minutes
The head of the World Trade Organization said he would leave his post in
August, a year earlier than scheduled, adding pressure on the body as it
faces fundamental challenges including a slumping world economy and deep
rifts among its members.
Brazil’s Roberto Azevedo, 62, who has steered the agency since 2013,
cited family reasons for his decision and said he wants the WTO not to
be distracted by a leadership race next year as it prepares overhauls
intended to put the organization back on its feet.
Under the organization’s rules, all members could agree to select a new
director-general in the coming months. That could be decided later this
month, officials said. If there is no new chief by Sept. 1, one of four
deputy director-generals would take over as an interim chief. They
include senior officials from the U.S. and China.
Mr. Azevedo’s decision comes as the coronavirus crisis has put the
global economy into its most perilous circumstances in decades and the
WTO has entered a crippling stalemate, with escalating tariff wars and
fighting over the organization’s rules among the U.S., China and the
European Union.
President Trump has repeatedly complained the WTO is unfair to the U.S.
and threatened to quit the organization if it doesn’t change. U.S.
officials say the global trade watchdog has strayed from its purpose to
liberalize and protect markets, and that conditions around China’s entry
into the WTO in 2001 have led to millions of U.S. jobs being lost.
Efforts to modernize WTO rules for challenges such as China’s
market-distorting state capitalism have repeatedly failed.
The U.S. has blocked the appointment of judges to the WTO’s top court,
called the Appellate Body, so that since December 2019, the court has
too few judges to rule on big trade disputes between countries.
“Despite the many shortcomings of the WTO, Roberto has led the
institution with grace and a steady hand. He will be difficult to
replace,” said Robert Lighthizer, the U.S. trade representative and Mr.
Trump’s top trade adviser. “In the coming months, the United States
looks forward to participating in the process of selecting a new
director general.”
Mr. Azevedo, a veteran trade official and the first Latin American to
lead the organization, said on Thursday that his early departure would
allow the process of choosing a successor to start now, clearing the
decks for member states to focus on WTO reforms and trade-liberalizing
goals ahead of a ministerial conference of members expected in June next
year.
“We know that the WTO cannot stand frozen while the world around it
changes profoundly. Ensuring that the WTO continues to be able to
respond to members’ needs and priorities is an imperative, not an
option,” he said.
He also defended the agency from its critics. “The WTO may not be
perfect, but it is indispensable all the same. It is what keeps us from
a world where the law of the jungle prevails, at least as far as trade
is concerned,” he said.
After news broke of Mr. Azevedo’s early departure, U.S. Sen. Josh
Hawley, (R., Mo.) a leading U.S. critic of the agency, tweeted: “Just
turn the lights off as you go.” Mr. Hawley is author of a resolution in
the Senate calling for a vote on whether the U.S. should withdraw from
the WTO.
The WTO is one of a number of organizations to be buffeted in recent
years by tensions between the U.S. and China and the Trump
administration’s swing to a more nationalist America First policy. Last
year, the head of the World Bank, South Korea’s Jim Yong Kong, quit as
chief several years early to go to the private sector.
—William Mauldin contributed to this article.
Write to Laurence Norman at laurence.norman-at-wsj.com and Stephen Fidler
at stephen.fidler-at-wsj.com
--
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