WTO in ‘damage control’ mode as Abu Dhabi agenda unravels

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“You could put the world’s greatest matchmaker, arbiter and negotiator in charge of the WTO right now and I don’t think much could happen,” said Rufus Yerxa, a former U.S. trade official who was a WTO deputy director from 2005 to 2013. The failure of WTO member countries to produce anything meaningful at the group’s 13th Ministerial Conference could further erode the Geneva-based organization’s ability to create new global trade rules and prevent a world in which competing economic blocs cause higher prices for consumers and businesses. WTO Director General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala bristles at the suggestion that the WTO is...