“I think it’s maybe understatement of the century to say that global trade is facing the greatest disruption in 80 years.” It’s a significant statement from anyone, let alone Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the director-general of the World Trade Organization. She warned at the Fortune Global Forum in Riyadh that the global economy is in its choppiest waters since the 1930s, no small feat considering that decade saw the Great Depression and the outbreak of the Second World War — and the Great Recession of 2008 is still in living memory.
Still, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala, a Nigerian economist who is the first woman and the first African to lead the World Trade Organization as director-general, insisted that what’s happening isn’t a replay of that dark decade in the early 20th century. “It is functioning,” Dr. Okonjo-Iweala said of trade, but it’s not functioning quite in the way it used to before. This is due to President Donald Trump enacting several sudden changes to world trade that reflect what he considers flaws in the system. “I think that a lot of the criticisms made by the U.S. of the system are valid,” the former Nigerian minister said, urging the audience to use this opportunity for wider reform.
