Reviving the WTO : Five Priorities for the Liberalization

Established in 1995, the World Trade Organization (WTO) was the culmination of half a century of global trade liberalization achieved under the auspices of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Subsequent agreements to achieve further liberalization — and to establish rules for emerging forms of cross‐​border trade and investment — were among the expectations of WTO members from the outset. But very little in the way of agreements on new rules has been achieved in the quarter century since the WTO’s founding, and today the institution is facing an existential crisis.Discord among members over a variety of matters; mounting tensions in the U.S.-China relationship; differences over definitions, priorities, and expectations; and the general absence of a requisite sense of urgency have left the organization in a state of paralysis. The failure to reach any new multilateral or other agreements — or even to agree on next steps at the conclusion of the last Ministerial Conference in Buenos Aires in 2017 — left many wondering if the end of the WTO was in sight.Should the WTO continue to fade into irrelevance, the world will no doubt have deep regrets. The rule of law in the international trading system has fostered greater certainty, international cooperation, and recourse to adjudication — all pillars of global economic growth that will be missed if we allow the WTO to descend into obsolescence.To help ward off that outcome, WTO members should be prepared to treat the next ministerial meeting, scheduled for June 2021 in Kazakhstan, as a make‐​or‐​break event where they must forge agreement on how to pursue further trade liberalization and what policy areas should take priority. This paper recommends five policy areas that should take priority in these discussions. If members cannot make progress in these areas before and during the ministerial meeting, the end of the WTO may indeed be upon us