WTO approves Okonjo-Iweala for potentially fraught second term

World Trade Organization Director General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala formally won a second term on Friday, setting the stage for a possible clash next year with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump over the future of the rules-based trading system. 
The 70-year-old Nigerian economist was the only candidate for the high-profile post, but her approval still required the support — or at least the acquiescence — of all 166 WTO members, including the United States.
“The decision reflects widespread recognition of her exceptional leadership and strategic vision for the future of the WTO,” Ambassador Petter Ølberg of Norway, the chair of the global trade body’s General Council who led the selection process, told a press conference in Geneva.
Ølberg dismissed suggestions that Okonjo-Iweala’s reappointment had been rushed through to pre-empt Trump’s inauguration. It was conducted transparently and inclusively, with WTO members consulted throughout the process, he said: “There is no reason to say that it has not been a legitimate process.”
Okonjo-Iweala’s second four-year term will begin on Sept. 1, 2025. She took office as director general in March 2021 and is the first African and the first woman to serve as head of the organization.
Asked how concerned she was about Trump’s plans to impose across-the-board tariffs and his history of hostility toward the WTO as a venue for arbitrating trade disputes, Okonjo-Iweala said it was premature to pronounce on them until more details are known.
“We are looking forward to working with the new administration. I think we should come into things with a very constructive and creative approach,” she said, adding that she wanted to avoid any kind of disputes that would be “detrimental to the functioning of the world trade system.”
Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, ran on a promise to raise tariffs on all $3.1 trillion of U.S. imports, a move that would violate U.S. trade commitments and ratchet up trade tensions with both friendly and adversarial nations.  
In what is likely the first of many tariff threats, Trump announced plans this week to impose a 25 percent tariff on Canada and Mexico to pressure those countries to stem illegal migration across the U.S. border. He also threatened an additional tariff of 10 percent on Chinese goods to pressure Beijing to stop fentanyl shipments into the United States. 
Trump and Okonjo-Iweala already have a troubled history. 
She took office in February 2021 after his first term ended. But Trump’s chief trade negotiator, Robert Lighthizer, tried to block her from becoming WTO director general — only to have that decision reversed after Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election.
In the runup to this week’s meeting, neither Trump’s transition team nor the Biden administration openly opposed or supported her bid for a second term. However, nervousness over what Trump might do clearly influenced the action of WTO members in recent months.  
Challenged on whether her views were compatible with those of the U.S. president-elect, Okonjo-Iweala said that there was a general understanding that the WTO, whose rules underpin 75-80 percent of global goods trade, needed to be supported. “I am sure that we would all agree on that,” she said.
Okonjo-Iweala’s first term does not end until Aug. 31, 2025, so the process of reappointing her or selecting a new director general normally would have begun just a few days from now on Dec. 1. 
WTO members agreed this fall to speed up the process at the behest of the Africa Group of nations, which argued her early reappointment would help the WTO better prepare for its next ministerial conference in late 2025 or early 2026. 
However, most people saw that move as a blatant effort to prevent Trump from blocking Okonjo-Iweala’s reappointment in the event of his reelection.
Okonjo-Iweala’s new term gives her another four years to preside over a troubled organization that has little to show in terms of reaching new agreements and is increasingly wracked by tensions between its biggest members, China, the U.S., the EU and India.
This story has been updated.