Unfurl Sturdy Sails To Navigate Trade Doldrums

We can no longer let trade diplomacy be managed by a changing bureaucracy. We must learn from earlier maneuvers at WTO and build competencies at home

- K M Chandrasekhar

Donald Trump's tantrums, which began during his first term as US president, seem to have peaked in his second term. During his first term, Trump initiated the virtual destruction of the World Trade Organization (WTO), an organization established to ensure orderliness in global trade and facilitate gradual movement towards free trade, taking into account the diverse development stages of the members. He achieved this by blocking the appointment of appellate body members, thereby preventing the powerful dispute settlement mechanism from functioning and enabling aggrieved members from imposing retaliatory tariffs on the aggressor.

This brings me back to my days as India's ambassador to the WTO. We were under constant pressure to reduce our tariffs. We received lectures about the benefits of free trade from the US, the EU, and several other allies within their camp and from the director general of the WTO. We had defensive interests in agriculture—there was no way we could let our farmers down. The EU also had defensive interests, and we initially aligned with them.

The EU and the US had collaborated during the Uruguay Round to impose an Agreement on Agriculture that prioritized their interests while neglecting the rest. Agricultural exporting countries and those with defensive interests alike were dissatisfied because this agreement allowed the big two to increase subsidies on agriculture with the vast majority of other members left out in the cold.

The US and EU attempted the same strategy again, reaching an understanding that protected each other's interests, sidelining all others. We took the initiative, along with Brazil, to form a new group comprising major developing countries like China, Egypt, South Africa, Thailand, and others. This proved to be an unyielding opposition to the big two, resulting in the talks breaking down at the Cancun Ministerial Conference in 2003.