The World Trade Organization began functioning as such in January 1995, and last month, the Director-General of the WTO, Roberto Azevêdo, spoke to the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington on the topic The WTO at 20. 

 
He talked about the strengths, the weaknesses and the challenges of the organizations with characteristic candor, including the WTO's relationship with regional trade agreements - all of them, not just the headlines negotiations of TPP and TTIP.   He conceded that the negotiating function of the WTO - especially the inability to conclude the Doha Round - has become "the Achilles heel of the organization."  And he acknowledged that the rules generated in other settings can, occasionally, conflict with WTO obligations, thereby creating a drag on the system. 

Still, as today's quote highlights, the more essential message was upbeat, notwithstanding the WTO's very significant challenges.  The Director General talked about the great breadth of the WTO's work and emphasized:

The expansion of trade liberalization. 

He was also candid in that earlier speech about the goals that seem unlikely to be met.  "As things stand today," he said, "... it doesn't look like there will be big breakthroughs in the areas that have been stalled for so many years, such as domestic supports in agriculture and market access in three areas: in ag., NAMA [industrial goods], and services."

The relationship between the rules of the WTO and those generated by other agreements was just one of several issues Mr. Azevêdo covered in his remarks at the Peterson Institute. We are highlighting it today because it is on our mind today, as we prepare for tomorrow's Cordell-Hull Institute Program on just this topic, an event that is being co-sponsored by the Global Business Dialogue. 

We expect to have more to say on this topic too once we have heard from the experts. Looking ahead to that discussion, it is not the spaghetti bowl - the potential conflict of rules - that concerns us so much as it is the impetus for a multiplicity of negotiating forums. 

As we recall the events of the 1980s, for example, the idea of a U.S.-Canada agreement was used in part as a kind of sheep dog, something to herd countries into action within the WTO. In more recent years, countries have not needed any encouragement to negotiate trade deals, but the direction hasn't been toward the center. It has been away from it. Maybe that trend is reversible. The newly minted Expansion of the Information Technology Agreement suggests as much, but the arguments on the other side, TPP, RCEP, and TTIP (to name a few) have hardly gone away.

Azevêdo at Peterson is to a link to a page on the Peterson Institute's website with details of the September 24 event featuring Director-General Azevêdo and including both audio and video recordings. 

To the TNC takes you to a WTO report on Mr. Azevêdo's remarks to the Trade Negotiations Committee, that is, the WTO members, earlier today.