Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala: Nigerian economist is WTO’s first black women leader

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala: Nigerian economist is WTO’s first black women leader

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South Korean Trade Minister Yoo Myung-hee announced her decision to withdraw in a televised briefing on Friday.

Okonjo-Iweala, an economist and former finance minister of Nigeria, has already enjoyed wide support from WTO members, including the European Union, China, Japan and Australia.
However, the United States, under the Trump administration, has favored Yoo and made the decision-making process more difficult, as the election of a new leader requires all WTO members to agree. The formal choice of Okonjo-Iweala may have to wait until the United States appoints a new trade representative.

Yoo said her decision was reached after “close consultation” with the United States. The WTO has been without a leader for too long, she added.

The body in Geneva, with the task of promoting free trade, has been without a permanent director general since Roberto Azevêdo stepped down a year earlier than planned at the end of August after the WTO was caught amid a growing trade dispute between the United States. State and China.

The Trump administration has been very critical of the WTO and has undermined its position by imposing tariffs on Canada, Mexico, China and the European Union. Okonjo-Iweala will therefore take control of an organization that has struggled to prevent trade laws between its members.

While US President Joe Biden has already taken steps to restore support for multilateral institutions, he will be expected to exercise caution when it comes to signing new trade agreements.

In a speech to the State Department Thursday, Biden undertook to put diplomacy back at the center of U.S. foreign policy, but was also careful to emphasize that foreign policy should benefit middle-class Americans.
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Okonjo-Iweala, who hails from one of the few parts of the world where free trade is emerging, told CNN in August that trade would play a key role in repairing the coronavirus pandemic.

“The WTO needs a leader at the moment. It has a fresh look, a fresh face, an outsider, someone with the ability to carry out reforms and to work with members to ensure that the WTO comes from the partial paralysis in which it is, ‘she said in an interview.

Okonjo-Iweala spent 25 years at the World Bank as a development economist and rose to the post of managing director. She was also chairman of the board of Gavi, which helps spread coronavirus vaccines worldwide, and will retire at the end of her term in December.

– Eoin McSweeney, Yoonjung Seo and Stephanie Busari reported.

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