The High and Low Politics of Trade

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is in trouble. Its negotiating mechanism has mostly seized up, as reflected in the failure to conclude the long-running Doha Round. No obvious solution to this conundrum is on the horizon, and member states do not know how to solve the problem. Some are reacting by taking their negotiating energies outside the WTO, into various regional and bilateral trade agreements. Meanwhile, geopolitics has reared its head, reviving memories, albeit distant ones, of the world disorder that gave rise to the Bretton Woods system, which has governed global trade and finance since the Second World War. In this report, key arguments are restated for why the WTO needs to be restored to the centre of global trade governance. In addition, the broad strategic reasons are examined behind its evident failure to achieve this goal – or, more accurately, the failure of its members to get there.