The timing of the British Chambers of Commerce Why Trade Matters report and the Driving International Trade Conference could not have been timelier, because MC14 has just shown, in real time, exactly what is at stake. Trade is not some abstract, technocratic concept, it is jobs, wages, supply chains, investment and growth in every part of the UK, and yet, at the very moment we are making that case, the global system designed to underpin it has failed to deliver. This was not a near miss, MC14 ran out of time, ran out of consensus and the lack of meaningful agreement is not just disappointing, it has really raised serious questions about whether WTO members can still take meaningful collective decisions on global trade.
Yes, there has been movement on the e-commerce agreement, and this does matter but the fact that 66 countries, representing the vast majority of global trade, are pressing ahead outside of full WTO consensus is not a success story, it is a warning. I would say it raises a far more uncomfortable question around what is the WTO now for? If it cannot negotiate modern trade rules, and reform itself remains gridlocked, then it risks being reduced to a technical forum with a weakened dispute function, rather than the engine of global trade governance. Rumblings from the conference suggest progress is happening despite the WTO, not because of it and that should concern everyone who still believes in a functioning multilateral system.
In that vacuum, some of the world’s most powerful economies may increasingly choose to bypass the system altogether… simply walk away, that could not have been imagined even a decade ago! Once that starts to happen at scale, it is not drift, it is erosion. This is geopolitical instability on a different scale.
We can see the cliff edge. It is not here yet, but it is getting closer and crucially, it may be accelerated if this ‘crisis’ is not actually acted upon. This is the moment to be honest, what happened in Yaoundé is not terminal… yet and while Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala concluded, “We decided to work differently” and bring members back together for the General Council in May, this route does introduce a path forward, but it’s clear the answer is reform, real, time-bound, politically difficult reform, because a world without a functioning WTO will not be more flexible or more efficient, it will be more unstable, more fragmented and far harder for SMEs who depend on rules, not power, to compete.
Our message from MC14, this is a watershed moment, use it, because if governments do not act now, they may find the system has already started moving on without them. While only 4 days of negotiations may have been too ambitious, for business and especially SMEs this could have enormous ramifications, without a functioning, rules-based system, they don’t just lose certainty, they lose access, they lose competitiveness, and ultimately they lose the ability to grow.
Steven Lynch MBE is Director of International Trade at the British Chambers of Commerce