World Trade Organization Sliding Toward Irrelevance Due to Member Disagreements and Inability to Guide New Economic Issues
• The World Trade Organization (WTO) is becoming ineffective and sliding toward irrelevance due to lack of agreement and progress among members.
• The U.S. is partly to blame for the WTO's decline after blocking appointments and criticizing the group's "judicial activism."
• The WTO is needed to guide new phases of economic interaction involving climate change, AI, IP protection, and more.
• Without a functional WTO, rising U.S.-China tension could lead to a fragmentation into rival trading blocs, costing 7% of global GDP.
• The WTO needs reform including better dispute resolution and a more nimble structure, but abandoning it would leave world trade without a "cop" and make everyone poorer.