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STORY: WTO / 30 ANNIVERSARY AND TRADE TENSIONS
TRT: 4:53
SOURCE: WTO
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 10 APRIL 2025, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND / 7 MARCH 2025, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
7 MARCH 2025, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Wide shot, WTO headquarters exteriors
2. Wide shot, banner celebrating the 30th anniversary of the WTO
3. Med shot, WTO logo at entrance
10 APRIL 2025, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
4. Med shot, delegates and officials posing for a photo ahead of the event.
5. Wide shot, delegates and officials posing for a photo ahead of the event.
6. Wide shot, WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, José Manuel Barroso and WTO officials are walking to the conference room
7. Wide shot, Former WTO Director-General Roberto Azevêdo and WTO officials walking to the conference room.
8. Wide shot, WTO officials entering the conference room.
9. Med shot, Former WTO Director-General Roberto Azevêdo is walking in the conference room.
10. Med shot, WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala talking to former WTO Director-General Roberto Azevêdo.
11. Med shot, Former WTO Director-General Supachai Panitchpakdi, José Manuel Barroso and David Walker ahead of the conference.
12. Med shot, Former WTO Director-General Supachai Panitchpakdi, David Walker ahead of the conference.
13. Med shot, José Manuel Barroso ahead of the conference.
14. Wide shot, pan left, conference underway
15. Wide shot, pan left, conference underway
16. Wide shot, pan left, conference underway
17. Med shot, WTO Director-General speaking from the lectern
18. Wide shot, conference underway
19. Wide shot, pan left, WTO Director-General speaking from the lectern
20. Wide shot, pan right, WTO Director-General speaking from the lectern
21. Close up, pan right, WTO Director-General speaking from the lectern
22. Close up, José Manuel Barroso speaking during conference
23. Wide shot, José Manuel Barroso speaking during conference
24. Wide shot, conference underway
25. Med shot, José Manuel Barroso speaking during conference
26. Med shot, pan right, José Manuel Barroso speaking during conference
27. SOUNDBITE (English) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, WTO Director-General:
"The escalating trade tensions between the United States and China pose a significant risk of a sharp contraction in their bilateral trade. A preliminary projection suggests that merchandise trade between these two economies could decrease by as much as 80 percent. Further escalation becomes tantamount to a shortening of bilateral trade between the two countries, a decoupling. The negative macroeconomic effects will not be confined to US and China alone, but will extend to other countries, especially the least developed nations. Of particular concern is the potential fragmentation of global trade along geopolitical lines. A division of the global economy into two blocks could lead to long term reduction in global real GDP by nearly 7 percent."
28. Wide shot, conference underway
29. SOUNDBITE (English) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, WTO Director-General
"The uncertainty around global trade has reminded many members why they value the WTO as a bedrock of predictability in the global economy and as a platform for dialogue and cooperation on trade. The US has some understandable and legitimate concerns about the WTO and the multilateral trading system. Other members developed and developing also have concerns of their own. Maybe we could use today's concerns to change the system for the better. And the great opportunity here is for WTO members to come together in a cooperative manner to safeguard the 74% of world goods trade still operating under MFN terms."
30. SOUNDBITE (English) José Manuel Barroso, Former President of the European Commission
"What we need today is not trade wars. If you speak about trade wars, we should be speaking about a permanent cease fire on those wars, in any kind of economic war, and we'd like to have the big powers of the world work together so that they can enhance not only open trade, but also global prosperity. Supporting open, predictable, rules-based economy is exactly what why WTO was created."
31. SOUNDBITE (English) Ambassador Saqer Abdullah Almoqbel of Saudi Arabia, WTO General Council Chair:
"I'm holding consultations starting immediately this week with all interested delegations with a view to explore how we, the WTO members, can best engage in these latest developments. We are indeed at a critical moment where members need to take one of two paths: to ignore the benefit that this organization has brought to global prosperity, or to build on what the legacy of the thirty years of rules-based trading system to keep making the world a better place."
32. Wide shot, Ambassador Saqer Abdullah Almoqbel of Saudi Arabia speaking during conference
33. Close up, WTO delegates, conference underway
34. Med shot, pan left, WTO delegates, conference underway
35. Wide shot, conference underway
36. Med shot, pan right, conference underway
37. Med shot, WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala listening during conference
38. Med shot, pan right, WTO delegates, conference underway
39. Med shot, pan left, José Manuel Barroso speaking during conference
40. Med shot, pan right, conference underway
41. Wide shot, pan left, conference underway
42. Wide shot, José Manuel Barroso speaking during conference
The WTO marked on 10 April its 30th anniversary with an event that brought together senior government officials, representatives from the private sector, civil society and intergovernmental organizations to exchange views on the achievements and challenges of the organization and the multilateral trading system. Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala noted that the anniversary provided the opportunity to reflect collectively on where things stand for “one of the world’s most consequential organizations” and to discuss the reforms needed for the WTO to improve the system of global trade.
The Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization was signed by 123 countries on 15 April 1994, leading to the birth of the WTO on 1 January 1995. Over the past 30 years, the WTO has helped to bring about a major expansion in global trade, with the objective of raising living standards, increasing employment and promoting sustainable development.
General Council Chair, Ambassador Saqer Al Moqbel of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, opened the event highlighting the WTO's role over the last three decades in raising living standards through trade, fostering cooperation, and maintaining a rules-based trading system. He underlined the importance of the multilateral trading system as a platform for co-operation and the place where members can build a better world through trade. “Let us not lose sight of that, particularly in the light of recent developments in global trade and the overall economic situation,” he said.
Director-General Okonjo-Iweala stressed the importance of marking this anniversary, particularly in the light of recent tariff-related developments and the speed at which events are unfolding, adding uncertainty and instability to world trade and the world economy.
“The uncertainty around global trade has reminded many members why they value the WTO as a bedrock of predictability in the global economy — and as a platform for dialogue and cooperation on trade,” DG Okonjo-Iweala said. She also noted that the understandable and legitimate concerns about the WTO and the multilateral trading system expressed by several members in recent times should be seen as an opportunity to “change the system for the better.”
She noted that “a far-reaching reform agenda” for the organization should be seen as an important opportunity to improve what does not work and position the WTO for the future. She also pointed out the suggestions brought forward by many members for forward-looking corrective action and reforms to monitoring and transparency, negotiations, and dispute settlement.
“We need to formulate the right questions to be answered to reform us, and put in place a member-owned process to drive it.” That work should start in Geneva and culminate with a ministerial debate and endorsement of a way forward at the 14th WTO Ministerial Conference (MC14) to be held in Yaoundé, Cameroon, on 26-29 March 2026.
Highlighting the “incalculable value for money” of an organization with an annual budget of CHF 205 million that ensures that trillions of dollars' worth of global trade are based on rules and trust, DG Okonjo-Iweala recalled that the WTO is much more than tariffs and emphasized that the organization is functioning and providing many of the benefits it was set up to provide.
“I remain convinced — I am the ever optimistic — that a bright future awaits global trade and the WTO if we do the right thing. Let us do the right thing and bring this organization to where it should be,” she added.
The keynote address of the event was delivered by the former Prime Minister of Portugal and President of the European Commission José Manuel Durão Barroso, who highlighted the WTO's role in lifting 1.5 billion people out of extreme poverty since 1995. Mr Barroso emphasized the need for the WTO in a complex global economy, noting its historic successes like lowering tariffs and increasing global trade to over U$ 30 trillion in 2023.
Advocating for cooperation, dialogue and pragmatism, Mr Barroso stressed the importance of open trade for global prosperity and peace, as exemplified by multilateral organizations and regional integration processes like the European Union in the post-World War II era.
The former EC President noted that the WTO “is going through what my kids would call a quarter life crisis — it has had big successes, but faces big existential challenges, and also needs to change to meet the demands of a changing world.” At the same time, he stressed the WTO is probably even more necessary today than it was when it was established in 1995.
He recalled that 30 years ago, the United States, Europe and Japan dominated the global economy and that today global economic power is much more widely distributed. “The world is much more complex today than it was at that time. Sidelining the WTO or allowing it to slide into irrelevance through inaction or deadlock would be a costly error, one that history will not look upon kindly,” he added.
