Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala may be confirmed World Trade Organisation’s director-general in a matter of days as a United States-based trade newspaper reports that South Korean government plans to withdraw its trade minister Yoo Myung-hee from the race.
Washington Trade Daily reported on Monday that Seoul could announce its decision to withdraw the trade minister in the coming days, clearing the coast for Nigeria’s former coordinating minister of the economy as the DG of the global trade body.
Analysts link the situation to the United States election, which saw the defeat of Okonjo-Iweala’s opposition base in Washington DC. Donald Trump was defeated by Joe Biden in the US election and this may have contributed to the situation, according to one international political analyst.
The US had earlier blocked Okonjo-Iweala from being the WTO head despite garnering over 104 countries’ support for the position, including China and the European Union.
In an earlier statement critical of the WTO, the Office of the US Trade Representative, which advises President Donald Trump on trade policy, had said the trade body must be steered by “someone with real, hands-on experience in the field.”
“This is a very difficult time for the WTO and international trade. There have been no multilateral tariff negotiations in 25 years, the dispute settlement system has gotten out of control, and too few members fulfill basic transparency obligations. The WTO is badly in need of major reform,” the statement said.
But Okonjo-Iweala was Nigeria’s coordinating minister of the economy, supervising trade, customs tariffs and overseeing the early success of the ECOWAS Common External Tariff, underscoring her experience in trade and commerce. With Trump’s imminent exit and a go-ahead directive for Biden’s transition to commence, Seoul must have seen the writing on the wall as the battle increasingly looks like a dead rubber.
President Trump is opposed to China and sees the European Union’s seeming alliance with the second largest economy as a threat to the United States. He has imposed tariffs on the country’s imports into the US, sparring a trade war that has done more harm to the world than good. China is, however, being criticized for hiding vital information on COVID-19 which is currently killing many people across the world, especially in the United States.
