Missing in action: America ought to help revive and reinvent the WTO

livemint.com:

As the 13th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) begins, the question is not whether this once-important gathering will fail, only if it will fail in a way that’s even worth noticing. The prevailing sentiment seems to be, “True, this broken relic of neoliberalism is barely any longer functioning. Who cares?" Regardless of your views on globalization, you should care.

Unrepentant neoliberals like myself see the rising tide of trade protection and deliberate economic fragmentation as a grave mistake. On our view that liberal trade is good, a suitably refurbished and effective WTO is an essential component of rising global prosperity. But even dedicated advocates of tariffs, subsidies, planning, industrial policy, friend-shoring, re-shoring, etc, ought to see the need for a well-functioning WTO because fragmentation ought to be at least orderly and cooperative rather than chaotic.

But chaotic fragmentation is where the world economy is heading. The meeting in Abu Dhabi has an agenda that touches on fishing subsidies, farming, e-com taxes and so forth. Subsets of like-minded governments might reach deals on some of these issues, enough for ‘success’ here and there, though the current mood of mutual hostility on trade policy will make even plurilateral agreements hard to achieve.

But the deals that most need to be struck aren’t about specific sectoral issues. What matters is restoring the WTO’s role as a forum for economic cooperation. For that, the US would need to resume its leadership of the WTO.