Nigerian candidate wins US backing to chair WTO

The president of the United States, Joe Biden, declared last Friday his support for the candidacy to head the World Trade Organization (WTO) of the Nigerian Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, which, with almost total certainty, will turn the candidate into the first woman and the first African to hold this position.

The other candidate, South Korean Trade Minister Yoo Myung Hee, had withdrawn her candidacy shortly before.

The United States was the only country that supported Yoo and had expressed its veto to Okonjo-Iweala, which blocked a consensus decision to elect the new head of the multilateral organization that must be made unanimously.

The change of Administration in the US has allowed Washington to show its "strong support" for Okonjo-Iweala, according to a representative of the US Trade Office.

The nominee has a wealth of experience in the international arena, having worked for the World Bank for 25 years and served two terms as Nigerian Finance Minister.

"The United States wants to work with the new leadership of the WTO to achieve the necessary substantive reforms that the organization needs," said the US representative.

Unprecedented crisis

The General Council of WTO members, the body in charge of making the appointment, was scheduled to meet in early March, but the meeting could be brought forward once the appointment is cleared.

The former director general of the organization, Roberto Azevedo, resigned from his post at the end of August for family reasons after seven years in the position and in the midst of a crisis without precedent in the history of the organization.

The WTO is in charge of overseeing the rules of global trade and is in what is probably the biggest crisis since its founding in 1995, due to the growing differences between the main trade blocs with China, the United States and the European Union with visions opposed, as well as the tensions between developing and industrialized countries.

In addition, the Donald Trump Administration dealt a near-fatal blow to the body by preventing the renewal of the appeals body, the arbitration court that gives the WTO the last word in trade disputes that are settled in the body.