The emergence of the Nigeria's former minister of finance and the former world bank managing director, Ngozi Okonjo Iweala can be a blessing to developing economies and of course to the rest of the world especially the western European and Asian countries. Her success of becoming the director general (DG) can place her as the first African and first female director general of the world trade organization (WTO) as an economist and international development expert who spent over 20 year career at the world bank as a development economist.
But the emergence of the Ngozi as the DG of WTO came with a new different phase of challenge as the US opposes Ngozi as the consensus candidate for the post of director general of the world trade organization ( WTO) in support of the South Korean Trade Ministery Too Myung-hee, instead.
Even though, there was yet no any genuine reasons or any ulterior motive behind the opposition of Ngozi's candidacy by the delegation of the united State (US), sources says US does not consider Ngozi as being committed enough to world power at the flagship trade body.
But with the wide support Ngozi secured for her candidacy in her bid to become the director general of the World Trade Organization twenty seven (27) European Union member states; Germany, France, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Australia, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden, fifty five (55) members of the African Union that had earlier officially supported her and other countries that supported her aspiration over her only remaining opponent South Korean Trade Minister, Too Myung-hee, brought the total number of 104 out of the 164 member states to have led to her emergence as the director general of the WTO, base on the consensus, in accordance with the rule of procedure of WTO but with only US opposing the consensus.
Ngozi Okonjo Iweala has secured the support of the members states of the WTO in the final round of the selection process but she has yet not been declared and returned as the winner because US is opposing her, the reason that led to postponement of the meeting of the General Council of the WTO slated on November 9th 2020, for final decision on the election process.
World Trade Organization is a non regional economic integration set up with the responsibility to control and manage the international trade rule, reduce trade barriers and control trade dispute among the member states. The organization later expanded its scope from trades goods to trade in services and intellectual property rights. Its headquarter situated at Geneva, Switzerland. Areas of cooperation among the WTO member-states are agriculture, trade, market expansion, settlement disputes and intellectual property rights.
Okonjo Iweala's emergence as the DG of WTO can become a blessing to developing countries because of the lack of global economic influence the developing countries have in the policy making and mechanism adjustment in the World Trade Organization. WTO is being deliberately limiting the space available to developing countries to use the legitimate policy instruments, such as tariffs and subsidies, to pursue their own development goal.
All policies and adjustment mechanisms being put in place by WTO are in favour of the developed economies and the burden of all the policies initiated by the WTO fall entirely on the developing economies. This is because according to some analysis, developed nations with strong export and production are the main beneficiaries of membership.
Dr. Christian Bluth in his trade and investment analysis ( December, 30th 2019) says the countries of USA, China and Germany are the countries that benefit the most worldwide from their accession to the WTO. They achieve by far the largest income gains, which are directly attributable to their membership in the trade organization. For the United States, income gains amount to about 87 billion US dollars (measured in gross domestic product, GDP). The Chinese generate income gains of about 86 billion US dollars and the Germans about 66 billion US dollars.
If Ngozi has successfully become the DG of WTO she can use her ample opportunity, knowledge, skills and the working experience she possessed throughout her 25 years while serving at the World Bank then, to assist less developing countries (LCDs) to secure shares in the international trade, coordinate trade policy review mechanism among developed nations and developing countries through the use of policy instruments; such as tariffs and subsidies and initiate an intermediary modalities through which developing countries can tap the untapped opportunities as far as international trade is concern.
Nevertheless, the reason why America is opposing the candidacy of Ngozi Okonjo Iweala might not be unconnected with the international politics, globalization and the strong ties between the US and the South Korea where the only remaining opponent, Too Myung-hee came from. Even though some people have been perceiving from the aspect of gender inequality and racism. This has nothing to do with the gender inequality and racism because the key point to understand the issue is to conceptualize an ideology on the two main ideological factors that determine the international trade in the current global villages, that's bilateralism and multilateralism.
In America especially in the current administration of the Donal Trump, do believes in bilateral international trade rather than multilateral international trade. This according to him is the way out to promote America's global trade. This was one of the reason the former DG of WTO resign because of the so much pressure and frustration mounted on him by US because he promoted multilateral trade relationship among the member States.
As America sees itself in the world economic outlook and her global trade influence it turns the WTO a marketplace that's being guided by national interest just to expand its market share In the global international trade. To achieve this, .America had to play international politics and its foreign interest to support the candidacy of the South Korean candidate in order to be able to remain on the top.
Since after the korean war i n1953, South Korea has been a long time strong ally of the United State and it is one of the lager partner of United State in Asia. Therefore, because of the long and strong diplomatic relations existing between the two countries US must do everything possible at its disposal to support the South Korea's candidate.
AG Mukhtar wrote in via Critical Voices