Supply Lines

WTO Meets Amid ‘Worst Industrial Crisis’ in Memory

Rules-based trade faces ‘defining moment’ in talks kicking off today amid energy crisis
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, director-general of the World Trade Organization, at the Munich Security Conference in Germany on Feb. 13.Photographer: Alex Kraus/Bloomberg
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The World Trade Organization kicks off its 14th biennial ministerial conference Thursday confronting a brewing economic crisis that’s sparking fresh concerns about the resilience of the global trading system.

“From a business perspective, we believe this could yet become the worst industrial crisis in living memory,” John Denton, secretary-general of the International Chamber of Commerce, said in a statement this week. “The test of the system is not rhetorical. It is practical. Can it respond at the speed and scale of the disruption facing the real economy?”