The Organisation That Governs $32 Trillion in Global Trade Is Falling Apart

institution that has governed global trade for three decades is in crisis, and the window to save it is narrowing. That is the message EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič delivered this week ahead of the WTO’s 14th Ministerial Conference in Yaoundé, Cameroon — the most consequential gathering of trade ministers in a decade, and one that WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has described as a “turning point ministerial.”

“You have declining political support for the WTO and we want to reverse it,” Šefčovič told the Financial Times ahead of the conference, which opened on Thursday with 166 member states represented. “We want to make sure that WTO becomes relevant again.” The bluntness of that statement from the EU’s most senior trade official signals how serious the situation has become — and how much is riding on the four days of talks in Cameroon.

The WTO’s problems are structural and political simultaneously. Its consensus-based decision-making model — requiring agreement from all members before any deal can be concluded — has become a chokehold. A small number of countries can and routinely do block agreements that enjoy overwhelming support. The result is an institution that has spent years negotiating and precious little time delivering. As Trump’s tariff war has dismantled the most-favoured-nation principle that sits at the WTO’s founding architecture, the political case for defending the existing system has weakened further. The US assault on the global trading order is, paradoxically, both the WTO’s biggest threat and its most powerful argument for reform.

The EU’s preferred solution is plurilateral flexibility — allowing coalitions of willing members to conclude agreements in areas such as digital trade and development financing, even without unanimous consent. “If there’s a group of countries with an ambition that is not comfortable for everyone, we think they should be able to go in the way that serves the global purpose,” Šefčovič said. It is a pragmatic position, but a politically contentious one. Developing countries, particularly the African bloc, have pushed back hard — warning that a shift away from consensus risks marginalising smaller economies and allowing powerful blocs to write rules that suit themselves. The tension between ambition and inclusion is at the heart of why the Yaoundé talks are so difficult.

The stakes extend well beyond procedural reform. The EU-US trade relationship has only just emerged from months of tariff turbulence after the Turnberry agreement limped toward parliamentary ratification in a form barely recognisable from what was originally signed. China’s $1 trillion trade surplus continues to distort global markets in ways the WTO’s current rulebook cannot effectively address. And global merchandise trade growth is forecast to slow to just 1.9% in 2026 from 4.6% in 2025, a deceleration that makes a functioning multilateral trading system more economically necessary, not less.

The United States, for its part, has arrived at Yaoundé with its own reform agenda. The US Trade Representative issued a report on the eve of the conference arguing the WTO must shift toward reciprocity and balance — a framing that clashes directly with the EU’s rules-based multilateralism but that at least signals Washington’s grudging engagement with the reform process rather than outright withdrawal. That is a more constructive posture than many expected from a Trump administration that has treated the WTO’s founding principles as obstacles rather than foundations.

What the Yaoundé conference can realistically achieve is a roadmap rather than a resolution — agreement on the direction of reform, not the reform itself. The ambition for immediate structural change has already been scaled back by the persistent lack of unity among members. But in the context of global markets already rattled by energy shocks, stagflation risks and declining business confidence, even a credible commitment to a reform timeline would represent meaningful progress.

The WTO’s own assessment of what MC14 must deliver is clear: demonstrate the organisation is capable of responding to criticism and repositioning itself for a changed world. Europe’s push for a capital markets union, its scramble for energy security, and its attempt to navigate a global trading environment reshaped by Trump’s tariffs all depend on a functioning rules-based trading system. If Yaoundé fails, the vacuum will be filled not by better alternatives but by fragmentation, bilateralism and the law of the largest economy. Time, as Šefčovič warned, is running out.