Tariffs cause ‘unprecedented’ disruption to global trade rules, WTO chief says

GENEVA: The share of global trade conducted on World Trade Organization (WTO) terms has fallen to 72 per cent, the WTO chief said on Tuesday (Sep 2), calling it the biggest disruption to the international trading system since World War II. Since US President Donald Trump imposed sweeping import tariffs this year, the share of trade carried out under the WTO’s “Most Favoured Nation” principle – which requires members to treat each other equally – has slipped from about 80 per cent, WTO data showed. “We’re experiencing the largest disruption to global trade rules, unprecedented in the past 80 years,” Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told Reuters in Geneva at the start of her second term.