Need a stronger WTO to fight Trump’s trade pivot

The Cameroon ministerial meeting this week offers a platform for countries, including India, to secure the global trade body from American unilateralism

- Prabhash Ranjan

Today, we are witnessing a new NIEO moment, this time launched by the US because of its disenchantment with the WTO.

(GETTY IMAGES VIA AFP)

In the 1960s and 70s, postcolonial States — India playing a paramount role — launched an ideological movement known as the New International Economic Order (NIEO), which emphasised economic redistribution, solidarity among the Third World, and substantive (not just formal) equality of nations in economic matters.

It was a gallant pushback against the West-dominated international economic order, which retained the remnants of imperialism. While the NIEO movement lost steam in the 1980s and 90s due to the emergence of a neoliberal consensus, it did manage to blunt some of the sharp edges of the West-dominated economic order.

Today, we are witnessing a new NIEO moment, this time launched by the US because of its disenchantment with the WTO, which is pushing the global trade regulator to the margins. The US's NIEO, rhetorically dubbed the Trump Round by US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, aims to legitimise American coercive power to secure market access and to prioritise American interests through non-reciprocity and unilateral enforcement. The recent US Agreements on Reciprocal Trade (ART) provide a sneak peek into this American NIEO.

It is against this background that the member-countries of the WTO are meeting for the 14th ministerial conference in Cameroon beginning Thursday. While a breakthrough is unforeseen, countries will do well to remember what is at stake and use this ministerial as a signalling opportunity to defend the WTO. To examine what countries need to do in Cameroon, it is first necessary to understand the crisis.