World Trade Organization, WTO, has approved a second tenure for Nigeria’s Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
Dr Okonjo-Iweala was reappointed as Director General of the world body for a second term at a special meeting on Friday, according to Reuters News Agency.
Okonjo-Iweala’s reappointment came just in time before the swearing in of United States President-elect, Donald Trump, for a second term in January.
Trump had during his first tenure as POTUS opposed the appointment of Okonjo-Iweala as the DG of WTO.
WTO watchers expect a challenging road ahead for the WTO as Trump assumes office on January 20, 2025.
The WTO, going forward, may be characterised by trade wars as Trump returns to the Whitehouse even as
he had threatened tariffs sanctions on goods from Mexico, Canada and China.
Okonjo-Iweala, a former Nigerian finance minister made history in 2021 by becoming the WTO’s first female and first African director-general.
She announced in September that she would run again, aiming to complete “unfinished business.”
No other candidates ran against her.
Trade sources said the meeting created a means of fast-tracking her appointment process to avoid any risk of it being blocked by Trump, whose teams and allies have criticised both Okonjo-Iweala and the WTO in the past.
In 2020, his administration gave its support to a rival candidate and sought to block her first term. She secured U.S. backing only when President Joe Biden succeeded Trump in the White House in January 2021.
Even in the Biden era, WTO negotiations have made limited progress although a handful of deals were struck in Geneva in 2022. Efforts to revamp the WTO’s dispute settlement system, brought to its knees under Trump due to U.S. opposition to judge appointments, have so far failed to deliver ahead of an end-December deadline.
Many predict that the WTO will be a theatre where mounting trade tensions between the U.S. and China will play out, with Trump’s new trade team expected to challenge Beijing’s official developing country status at the WTO that critics say gives it unfair advantages.
However, some analysts said there was an opportunity for Okonjo-Iweala to keep the WTO relevant by using it as a forum to address trade tensions.
“We see an opportunity to advance pragmatic solutions through the WTO to address common trade frictions – including through coalitions of the willing where necessary,” John Denton, Secretary General of the International Chamber of Commerce, told Reuters.
