WTO facing 'existential' threat: UK trade minister

Britain's trade minister insisted Tuesday that a strong World Trade Organization was vital for global commerce, stressing the need for reforms and urging countries to defend the WTO in an "existential moment".

The global trade body is contemplating reforms as it grapples with shifting geopolitical realities, and protectionist tendencies dramatically exacerbated by US President Donald Trump's tariff policies.

"We are very keen to maintain the strength of the WTO," Britain's new trade minister Chris Bryant told reporters at the organisation's headquarters in Geneva.

Bryant, guiding Britain through its first Trade Policy Review at the WTO since it left the European Union in 2020, highlighted his country's ambition to be a champion of free and fair trade.

"You only get a free- and fair-trade world, which enables greater prosperity for everybody, if you have a rules-based order," he said, adding that therefore, "you've got to have a WTO, and it's got to be a WTO that can function".

Bryant pointed out that, even before Trump's wave of tariffs, global trade had been under pressure.

Last week, United Nations chief Antonio Guterres warned that the rules-based international trade system was in danger of coming off the rails.

Noting that three quarters of goods are still traded under WTO rules globally, Bryant said: "Abandoning that, I think (would) be a terrible mistake."

WTO chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has acknowledged the need to overhaul the 30-year-old organisation.

She has called for the WTO to "streamline decision-making".

The WTO's mechanism for resolving disputes has also been effectively paralysed since December 2019, due to the United States blocking the appointment of judges to the appellate body.

Bryant said that finding solutions on those two issues, among others, would be important during the next WTO ministerial meeting, due to be held in Cameroon in March next year.

"I really do think this is an existential moment," he said.

"There is a danger that (WTO) will dwindle into insignificance over coming years if countries that care about it don't take an action when it comes to the ministerial conference in Cameroon," he said.