Multilateralism under threat at the WTO

When trade ministers met in March under the auspices of the World Trade Organization, they faced a US delegation bent on reshaping the body governing international trade into one where powerful countries can effectively ride roughshod over the interests of developing nations.

Kinda Mohamadieh

---

THE 14th Ministerial Conference (MC14) of the World Trade Organization (WTO), held in Yaoundé, Cameroon, on 26–29 March, was reported as a collapse resulting from a standoff between Brazil and the United States over extension of a moratorium on customs duties on e-commerce transmissions. However, this is just one screenshot of a bigger unfolding story where the US is attempting to enforce its will on the organisation while some other member states are resisting.

The Trump administration has not pulled the US out of the WTO so that it can complete a project of remaking the organisation into one that fits the US’ vision of a new international order serving its ‘national security interests’. Since the administration came into office, it has made clear that its approach to foreign relations will be based on brute power and politics of coercion. MC14 was one international forum where these dynamics were manifested.

The US’ vision for remaking the WTO, as reflected in its submissions under the ‘WTO reform’ negotiations before MC14, along with the statement by the US Trade Representative in Yaoundé, entails an attack on the raison d’être of the organisation, which is multilateralism.

Multiple US administrations had maintained a fairly consistent approach to the WTO, undermining some of its key functions, such as by paralysing its dispute settlement function and pushing for a self-determined ‘national security’ exception from WTO norms. The latter exception could effectively become an opt-out mechanism for the US from its obligations under the WTO rules – including the ‘most-favoured nation’ (MFN) principle – securing immunity from questioning for any US unilateral trade measure packaged as a ‘security’ issue.

Under the Trump administration, the US’ talk at the WTO has not been sought to be hidden behind diplomatic or legal jargon. The US submissions have made clear that it is out to dismantle the fundamental pillar upholding the multilateral trading system – that of non-discrimination and the MFN principle, under which a trade benefit accorded by one member state to another has to be extended to all other members. The US also wants to strip away ‘special and differential treatment’ for developing-country members, a core part of the original bargain behind the establishment of the WTO and which reflects an acknowledgment that one-size-fits-all rules do not work given the varying levels of development among members.

The US vision is to turn the WTO from a multilateral organisation where each member, big or small, has an equal voice, into a platform for plurilateral deals among the big players where it can effectively control the setting of the agenda and focus the organisation on US corporate interests.

A WTO focused on plurilaterals as a norm rather than an exception will be a place where the voice of developing countries is eroded. Trade wars will potentially be imported into the WTO through simultaneous plurilateral initiatives and counter-initiatives, leading to further fragmentation of the trading regime. This will be a world where MFN is discarded, consensus decision-making undermined, and opportunities to advance issues of development eroded.

At MC14, the US focused attention on its proposal for a permanent moratorium on e-commerce customs duties. The US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer suggested there ‘would be consequences’ if the US did not get its way. This was the US administration carrying forward the agenda of its corporate tech giants. Since 1998, the US had secured this moratorium against the growing concerns of developing countries that this practice costs them billions of dollars in forgone tariff revenue that is key for their development, industrialisation and building of digital capacities.

The Trump administration has brought the multilateral trading system to its knees with its aggressive, unjustified tariff policies and illegal bilateral tariff deals over the past year. In Yaoundé, this same administration pushed to deny developing countries the legitimate use of tariff policy to advance developmental objectives and preserve digital sovereignty and capacity to develop their digital economy. It is clear that the US’ fight at the WTO is not only against China. It seeks to erase any trajectory towards industrialisation and competitive edge that any other developing country could potentially build under multilateralism.

With no decision achieved at MC14 on the e-commerce moratorium nor on WTO reform, a package of measures to support least developed countries, and a separate moratorium on TRIPS ‘non-violation’ complaints, the work will be brought back to the WTO’s Geneva headquarters for further discussion.  A question often posed in Geneva is how to keep the US engaged in the negotiations, which will become more prominent in light of what unfolded in Yaoundé. When negotiations are overwhelmed by this question, the attention moves away from efforts to make the organisation relevant for all its members, and a forum where negotiations lead to outcomes for members at different levels of development. Instead, even decision-makers in the WTO administrative body are focused on ensuring the US stays on board. This adds to the distortions.

In this context, developing countries face the larger threats of fragmentation and distraction from their key concerns and interests. Multiple US administrations already showed how they can keep key WTO negotiating agendas like dispute settlement reform in limbo and block the functioning of the WTO Appellate Body against the will of the other members. In this case, the US’ blocking is void of any justified principled position, but rather a brutal imposition of its narrow interests on the rest of the WTO membership.

In the face of the US project, largely supported by the European Union, to remake the WTO – what international economic law expert Jane Kelsey calls ‘a coup underway at the WTO’ – developing countries need to stand together despite the differences they might have on some negotiating issues. They should collectively assess what a focus on plurilaterals would mean for them and for the WTO, its survival as a multilateral organisation and its potential to deliver for members at different levels of development. Managing differences while leveraging the power of dialogue, cooperation and coalition-building is crucial for them to maintain a voice and role in determining the WTO’s future direction.             

Kinda Mohamadieh is a legal adviser and senior researcher with the Third World Network.

*Third World Resurgence No. 367, 2026/2, pp 14-15