"Protectionism Eroding Global Business," Insists WTO Chief

Global trade “is not having the best of times at the moment.”

The admission about the turbulent status of global trade was made by Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, director general of the World Trade Organization (WTO). I Photo: World Trade Organization Facebook

That is the admission of the director general of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. “We are seeing increasing protectionism, some undermining of the WTO rules, and some of this is leading to fragmentation,” she tells Jonathan Josephs of BBC News.

“Global trade is really part of the lifeblood for making countries resilient - and also for underpinning growth, so we are concerned about that,” she added.

In recent weeks and months, these fragmentations have come to the fore with the EU imposing provisional tariffs of up to 37.4% on imports of Chinese electric vehicles (EVs). It followed after the US introduced 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs in May.

Both Brussels and Washington accuse the Chinese government of unfairly subsidizing its EV sector, allowing producers to export cars at unfairly low prices, and threatening jobs in the West.

President Biden has also increased import taxes on a range of other Chinese products that he said formed "the industries of the future." These include EV batteries and the minerals they contain, the cells needed to make solar panels, and computer chips.