The world’s answer to pandemic nationalism

One global achievement during the pandemic is that major countries put aside their differences and agreed on a person to lead the World Trade Organization. And not just any person, but the first woman and the first African to be director-general of this guardian institution of open trade. This consensus hints at what Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala herself calls the WTO’s potential to be a “force for good” in countering the coronavirus’s economic effects and in lifting up the world’s most marginalized people.

The last thing the world needs, says the Harvard-educated economist, is a “surge of nationalism” in response to the pandemic and a closing of borders and a disruption of global supply chains. Multilateralism has never been more needed than now, says this Nigerian-born American citizen.

The pandemic, she points out, has forced many countries to be transparent, predictable, and fair in how they contain the virus – all fundamental principles of the multilateral trading system set up after World War II and especially in the WTO’s founding 26 years ago.

Her first priority is to make sure health supplies flow freely between countries. After that, her biggest task is to spread more widely the benefits of the global trading system. Last year, as the pandemic was starting, she wrote that out of the “doom and gloom” of an epidemic, “there are fresh insights about the value of caring work, the need for empathy and the importance of community.” Will the world, she asked, see “a new spirit of kindness based on the dramatic reminder of our shared humanity?”

Growing up in Nigeria, Ms. Okonjo-Iweala saw how trade protectionism can lead to political patronage and corruption. As the country’s first female finance minister, she stood up to special-interest groups in a campaign against corruption. As managing director of the World Bank, she honed her managerial skills as an honest broker, as a listener, and as someone with what she calls “an objective head.”

The WTO needs such skills to form a new consensus about its purpose. The 164-nation body has faltered in the face of a backlash against globalization and a contest between China and the United States, especially over their competing models for running an economy. Trade, she says, cannot be made “a bogeyman to blame for the economic problems that some countries face.” She suggests one solution is to allow countries to self-select their commitments to lesser trade agreements.

Her ascendancy to the WTO comes as her home continent officially started a free-trade zone on Jan. 1. African leaders now see how trade has reduced poverty in other parts of the world.

Trade is not an end itself but a means, says Ms. Okonjo-Iweala. If properly managed, it can be an inclusive force to bring marginalized people into an economy, or what she says is an equal opportunity to make progress. One good example is the selection of someone who once lived on one meal a day to fix the global trading system.