Sep 21, 2026 · 3 min · 4 segments
Today's trade is not your grandmother's GATT, and the WTO is necessary to provide guidance but needs to update its frame of reference. Listen for more on Two Minutes in Trade.
Back then, goods were roughly 80% of global trade and services about 20%.
WTO negotiators need to stop replaying old rules and start looking hard at what is being traded and who is doing the trading.
Smaller countries should spend less time defining themselves by special and differential treatment and more time jumping into services where they can leapfrog older economies burdened by legacy infrastructure.
With the right technology, even Vanuatu, a tiny country, can stand on the same platform as the United States.
The current market-protecting chaos in global trade is exactly why the WTO still matters.
The 4,600 others in trade in the public sector that were with me in Geneva seemed to agree.
Trade needs guardrails, traffic lights, and a credible institution that can restore order.
Not a museum for old trade fights, but a working operating system for the trade world we actually live in.
Back then, goods were roughly 80% of global trade and services about 20%.
WTO negotiators need to stop replaying old rules and start looking hard at what is being traded and who is doing the trading.
Smaller countries should spend less time defining themselves by special and differential treatment and more time jumping into services where they can leapfrog older economies burdened by legacy infrastructure.
With the right technology, even Vanuatu, a tiny country, can stand on the same platform as the United States.
The current market-protecting chaos in global trade is exactly why the WTO still matters.
The 4,600 others in trade in the public sector that were with me in Geneva seemed to agree.
Trade needs guardrails, traffic lights, and a credible institution that can restore order.
Not a museum for old trade fights, but a working operating system for the trade world we actually live in.
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