The head of the World Trade Organisation is to step down early, according to reports, following the coronavirus collapse in commerce and regular barbs from the Trump administration.
Roberto Azevêdo, a former Brazilian diplomat who has been director-general since 2013, will resign via video link this afternoon, Bloomberg reported.
Azevêdo’s second term does not end until September next year but under his stewardship the WTO has been strangled out of power by Donald Trump’s White House.
The 62-year-old’s decision to leave the international trade regulator comes as the global economy stands above a precipice not seen since the Great Depression as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
Roberto Azevêdo, a former Brazilian diplomat who has been director-general since 2013, will resign via video link this afternoon, Bloomberg said
The WTO has three significant functions: to facilitate negotiations for multilateral trade deals, to resolve cross-border commerce disputes and to centralise trade policies.
The White House has cut off the WTO’s ability to carry out the first two.
Last year President Trump paralysed the body by blocking new appointments to its Appellate Body, a seven-member committee which judges trade disputes.
As a result the WTO cannot resolve international trade disagreements on future cases as of December 11.
The White House has argued that China has not fulfilled commitments made by Beijing when it joined in 2001 to move towards a more free market-based economy.
Ever since his campaign in 2016, Trump has ripped the WTO as one of the worst trade deals America ever made, in large part because China was allowed to join.
The covering up of the coronavirus by Beijing, and the assistance it received in doing so by another Geneva-based international body, the World Health Organisation, has boosted the WTO’s critics.
In July last year, Trump threatened to withdraw recognition of the special ‘developing nation’ status of China and other relatively rich countries in the WTO unless changes were made.
Senator Josh Hawley, a Republican senator from Missouri, wrote in the New York Times on May 5, called for the abolition of the WTO so that the US could better tackle Chinese ‘imperialism.’
U.S. President Donald Trump looks on as Director-General of World Trade Organization Roberto Azevedo speaks during a news conference at the 50th World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, January 22, 2020
The precarious position of the global economy means that finding a replacement for Azevêdo could be a hasty process.
Two candidates have previously signalled their desire to replace the director general.
One is Abdelhamid Mamdouh, an Egyptian lawyer at King & Spalding LLP and former Director of the Trade in Services and Investment Division of the WTO.
The second is Yonov Frederick Agah, a Nigerian who is the WTO’s deputy director-general.
If the member states cannot pick a new chief by September, four of its deputies – including Agah – can be called upon to take over as caretaker.
The other three deputies are Karl Brauner from Germany, Alan Wolff from the US and Yi Xiaozhun from China.
There has not been a US or Chinese director general since the WTO was formed in 1995.
The WTO headquarters in Geneva – Trump on July 26, 2019, threatened to withdraw recognition of the special ‘developing nation’ status of China and other relatively rich countries in the World Trade Organization unless changes are made
Back in January, it had seemed that Azevêdo might be able to partner with Trump to reform the body.
At a joint press conference at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Trump had said he and the Brazilian had talked about a ‘very dramatic’ change.
‘We’re talking about a whole new structure for the deal or we’ll have to do something,’ the US president said.
Azevêdo had said: ‘If we are serious about changing and updating the WTO to make it more responsive to the changes of the 21st century, we need to be ready to be do things that are unusual, that are important, that are maybe even dramatic.’