A crucial meeting aims to remake the WTO to fit the new global order

The UN faces a crisis as the U.S. withdraws funding from key agencies like the WTO, meeting amid geopolitical tensions and climate issues, yet failing to address these challenges.

With the global rules-based order collapsing, the United Nations faces an existential crisis as the United States leads other countries in defunding and withdrawing from key agencies such as the World Health Organization.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) may soon join the endangered list.

On March 26, its 166 member states will meet for their 14th Ministerial Conference over three and a half days in Cameroon. Dubbed a “reform ministerial”, this is unlike any since the WTO was established in 1995.

Whether the organisation will survive these “reforms” is uncertain. Whether it should survive will be even more controversial.

This biennial ministerial conference occurs against a backdrop of war, accelerating climate change, geopolitical polarisation, coercive unilateral trade sanctions, fractured supply chains and competition to control critical mineral resources.

But none of that will be addressed.

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