African woman to be world’s top trade manager for the first time

Economic news for Saturday, February 6, 2021

Source: edition.cnn.com

02/06/2021

The way has been opened for Nigerian Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to become the first woman and the first African to lead the World Trade Organization after the South Korean candidate’s withdrawal from the race for the post.

Yoo Myung-hee, South Korea’s Minister of Commerce, announced her decision to step down during a televised point Friday.

Nigeria’s economist and former finance minister Okonjo-Iweala already enjoyed wide support from WTO members including the European Union, China, Japan and Australia.

However, the United States, under the Trump administration, had favored Yoo, complicating the decision-making process as the selection of a new leader forces all WTO members to agree. The official selection of Okonjo-Iweala may have to wait for the appointment of a new trade representative by the United States.

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

The Geneva-based body tasked with promoting free trade has been without a permanent director general since Roberto Azevêdo resigned a year earlier than expected at the end of August after the WTO was taken in the middle of a growing trade struggle between the United States. States and China.

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

While US President Joe Biden has already taken steps to restore support for multilateral institutions, he should act with caution when it comes to signing new trade deals.

In a speech to the State Department on Thursday, Biden pledged to put diplomacy back at the center of U.S. foreign policy, but was also careful to stress that foreign policy should benefit middle-class Americans.

Okonjo-Iweala, who hails from one of the few regions in the world where free trade is on the rise, told CNN in August that trade will play an important role in resuming the coronavirus pandemic.

“The WTO needs a leader right now. It needs a fresh outlook, a new face, a stranger, someone who can implement reforms and work. with members to bring the WTO out of the partial paralysis it finds itself in, “she said in an interview.

Okonjo-Iweala spent 25 years at the World Bank as a development economist, rising to the post of Managing Director. She also chaired the board of directors of Gavi, which helps distribute coronavirus vaccines around the world, stepping down at the end of her term in December.