GENEVA: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who was reappointed Friday for a second term running the World Trade Organization, said she looked forward to working with Donald Trump, while insisting on the importance of rules-based global trading. Okonjo-Iweala, the first woman and the first African to head the WTO, was the only candidate in the race, and had been all but assured a second four-year term. The 70-year-old Nigerian was reappointed by consensus among the organization’s 166 members, who sped up the process in what observers suggested was a bid to avoid Trump blocking her candidacy after he returns to the White House on January 20.

"We have a full agenda to deliver for the people of this world... and for the planet,” Okonjo-Iweala told reporters after her reappointment was announced. "We fully intend to get to work immediately, no stopping.” Her current term ends in August 2025, but African countries called for the appointment process to be brought forward, officially to facilitate preparations for the WTO’s next big ministerial conference, set to be held in Cameroon in 2026.

The unstated objective was to "accelerate the process, because they did not want Trump’s team to come in and veto her as they did four years ago”, said Keith Rockwell, a senior research fellow at the Hinrich Foundation and a former WTO spokesman. The common practice of appointing directors-general by consensus made it possible in 2020 for Trump to block Okonjo-Iweala’s appointment for months, forcing her to wait to take the reins until after President Joe Biden entered the White House in early 2021.

‘Eager’ to work with Trump

The overwhelming support for Okonjo-Iweala’s second term came "not so much (because) everyone loves Ngozi”, but rather due to concern that Trump "would slow things”, a source close to the process told AFP. Okonjo-Iweala herself said she found suggestions her re-appointment had been rushed due to the looming changing of the guard in Washington "a little odd”. "I look very much forward to working with President Trump... I am eager for it,” she said.

For now at least, Washington is equally enthusiastic, with US Trade Representative Katherine Tai congratulating Okonjo-Iweala in a statement highlighting Washington’s appreciation for "her work over the last nearly four years” and her "strong commitment to the work and future of the organization”. But during Trump’s first term, the WTO faced relentless attacks from his administration, which crippled the organization’s dispute settlement appeal system, and also threatened to pull the United States out of the organization altogether. Trump has already signaled he is preparing to launch all-out trade wars, threatening to unleash a flurry of tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico on his first day in office.

‘Festival of tariffs’

Okonjo-Iweala said Friday that "until we get specifics” it was "a bit premature” to comment on Trump’s promised trade actions. "We should come into things with a very constructive and creative approach,” she said. She stressed though the need "to make sure that we don’t have a situation in which we have any kind of trade disputes that are detrimental to the functioning of the world trade system”.

That could be tricky, observers said. "The festival of tariffs announced to date shows that (Trump) has no intention of following any rules,” said Elvire Fabry, a researcher at the Institut Jacques Delors think-tank. "The United States would not even need to withdraw from the WTO,” she told AFP. "They are freeing themselves from the WTO rules.” In this context, the WTO chief will have "a firefighter role”, she said.

It will be a question of "saving what can be saved, and making the case that there is no real alternative to the WTO rules”, said another source close to the discussions on speeding up Okonjo-Iweala’s reappointment. "It will be a very difficult mandate, with little certainty about what will happen.” Since taking the WTO reins, Okonjo-Iweala has tried to breathe new life into the fragile organisation, pushing for fresh focus on areas like climate change and health. But pressure is growing for WTO reform, in particular of the moribund appeals portion of its dispute settlement system, which collapsed during the first Trump presidency as Washington blocked the appointment of judges. — AFP