Race to WTO leadership is down to the final two candidates

World Trade Organization members selected two final candidates—Nigeria’s Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and South Korea’s Yoo Myung-hee—to advance to the final round in the race to lead the Geneva-based trade body, according to people familiar with the matter.

By advancing two women to the final round of the selection process, the WTO will likely have the first female director general in its 25-year history.

Okonjo-Iweala served two stints as Nigeria’s finance minister and one term as foreign affairs minister. She has experience working at international governance bodies as a former managing director of the World Bank and as a chairman at the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization.

Yoo is South Korea’s trade minister. During her 25-year career in government, she has helped expand her country’s trade network through bilateral accords with the U.S., China and the U.K.

WTO General Council Chairman David Walker plans to formally announce the results to the institution’s delegates on Thursday morning in Geneva.

“They’re both very well qualified, it’s going to be a fight,” said William Reinsch, a trade official in the Clinton administration and senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The top challenge will be “restoring the organization to full strength and viability, and restoring its reputation. “You need members to have confidence that the WTO is capable of solving problems. I think right now that confidence is eroded.”

Missed Cut

The United Kingdom’s Liam Fox, Kenya’s Amina Chawahir Mohamed Jibril, and Saudi Arabia’s Mohammad Maziad Al-Tuwaijri did not secure enough support in the second round of consultations, according to people familiar with the matter.

The third and final phase of the consultation process will begin later this month and run until Nov. 6, after which the WTO will endeavor to name a consensus winner of the race.

Clouding the outlook for the selection process is the U.S. presidential election Nov. 3. The WTO makes decisions on a consensus basis, and a lack of American support for any of the finalists could mean delays in picking the new director-general.

“I don’t see how you could conclude that either candidate would be unacceptable, from a U.S. point of view,” said Reinsch. “Lighthizer was asked for criteria for the selection and I think he mentioned three: committed to reform, no whiff of anti-Americanism, and taking on countries that flout the rules. I think they certainly meet his criteria,” he said, referring to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer.

If WTO members are unable to select a leader by consensus, a vote requiring a qualified majority could be held as a last resort, which would be an unprecedented development for the organization.

The campaign to lead the WTO during the most turbulent period of its 25-year existence is playing out against the backdrop of the pandemic, a worldwide recession, the U.S.-China battle for trade supremacy and the American election. President Donald Trump has blasted the WTO as the worst trade deal in U.S. history and pledges to overhaul it to better suit the country’s interests.

The vacancy for the top WTO job arose when Brazil’s Roberto Azevedo decided to step down at the end of August, a year before his term was due to end.

WTO members view the race as an opportunity to reshape the organization, whose mission of economic integration is under threat from protectionist policies around the globe. Without reform, it risks being sidelined during the biggest economic crisis in a century.