The WTO is close to choosing its next leader in a final round pitting Brazil against Mexico, with the winner facing the tough task of restoring the clout of global commerce’s rule-setting body.
Brazil’s WTO ambassador Roberto Azevedo and his rival Herminio Blanco, Mexico’s former trade minister, are expected to learn as early as tomorrow whether they have won a contest that is seen as too close to call.
All concerned are keenly aware that the successor to director-general Pascal Lamy from France must act fast to revive the WTO’s moribund global trade talks.
Both men have pitched a similar vision for a negotiating process, which they say needs overhauling.
“The multilateral trading system is weakened by a complete paralysis in the negotiations,” Azevedo said, explaining it was time to “unclog the system.”
Blanco, meanwhile, said it was time to reboot the 159-nation WTO.
“The main challenge is the ‘W’ in ‘WTO,’” he said, underlining that the logjam had pushed members into negotiating bilateral and regional deals.
Supporters of a WTO-wide deal warn that other accords can create a “spaghetti bowl” of conflicting rules, thereby failing to serve global commerce.
Created in 1995, the WTO aims to spur growth by opening markets and removing trade barriers, including subsidies, excessive taxes and regulations.
The stated goal of its “Doha Round,” launched at a summit in Qatar in 2001, is to deploy trade to develop poorer economies.
However, members repeatedly have clashed over the give and take needed to reach a deal, with deep splits notably between China, the EU, India and the US.
Amid fears that December’s WTO summit in Bali could fail, the new director-general will have to act fast after taking over on Sept. 1.
“The new DG obviously will come in at a rather precarious time for the WTO,” said Sergio Marchi, Canada’s former trade minister and ex-WTO ambassador.
Besides working the diplomatic circuit, Marchi said, the new leader must repair ties with the business community — the hub of global commerce.
“The business community has taken the view, ‘Call me when you’re serious’ … Obviously getting Doha together is a challenge, but if the institution is seen as irrelevant, it is irrelevant,” he said.
Against that background, Blanco seems to have the advantage.
The 62-year-old economist was Mexico’s negotiator for the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement and has solid private sector credentials, running an international trade consultancy and sitting on US, Asia and European company boards.
However, Azevedo’s insider status could be key.
The 55-year-old career diplomat was Brazil’s chief litigator in a raft of WTO disputes before becoming ambassador in 2008.
“In the WTO today, you don’t have any low-hanging fruit. You have to go up the tree, grab the fruit and bring it down. And if you don’t know the system, and don’t know the trees, you’re not going to get the fruit,” he said.
Marchi underlined the symbolism of a Latin American WTO leader.
“It’s the emerging economies that are now the economic locomotive globally, and both Brazil and Mexico have done tremendously well thanks to trade,” he said.
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday said the DRAM supply crunch could extend through 2028, as the artificial intelligence (AI) boom has led the world’s major memory makers to dramatically reduce production of standard DRAM and allocate a significant portion of their capacity for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips. The most severe supply constraints would stretch to the first half of next year due to “very limited” increases in new DRAM capacity worldwide, Nanya Technology president Lee Pei-ing (李培瑛) told a news briefing. The company plans to increase monthly 12-inch wafer capacity to 20,000 in the first half of 2028 after a
Taiwan has enough crude oil reserves for more than 100 days and sufficient natural gas reserves for more than 11 days, both above the regulatory safety requirement, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday, adding that the government would prioritize domestic price stability as conflicts in the Middle East continue. Overall, energy supply for this month is secure, and the government is continuing efforts to ensure sufficient supply for next month, Kung told reporters after meeting with representatives from business groups at the ministry in Taipei. The ministry has been holding daily cross-ministry meetings at the Executive Yuan to ensure
RATIONING: The proposal would give the Trump administration ample leverage to negotiate investments in the US as it decides how many chips to give each country US officials are debating a new regulatory framework for exporting artificial intelligence (AI) chips and are considering requiring foreign nations to invest in US AI data centers or security guarantees as a condition for granting exports of 200,000 chips or more, according to a document seen by Reuters. The rules are not yet final and could change. They would be the first attempt to regulate the flow of AI chips to US allies and partners since US President Donald Trump’s administration said it rescinded its predecessor’s so-called AI diffusion rules. Those rules sought to keep a significant amount of AI
RSS