On October 29, the Washington International Trade Association (WITA) put together a short video discussion among Rufus Yerxa (current President of the National Foreign Trade Council, former Deputy Director-General of the WTO among other positions), Wendy Cutler (currently Vice President and Managing Director of the Washington, D.C. office of the Asia Society Policy Institute and former senior negotiator at the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office) and me, moderated by Ken Levinson (Executive Director of WITA). The discussion dealt with the challenges to the ongoing WTO Director-General selection process from the U.S. announcement and Korea’s failure to withdraw its candidate following the announcement that Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala of Nigeria was the candidate most likely to attract consensus based on the third round of consultations (which concluded on October 27). The You Tube link to the discussion is below.
Terence P. Stewart
2 Comments
Hi Terry, I’ve been following your trade blogs on a bunch of topics. They’re all good, but especially on this. The original WITA webinar with you, Wendy and Rufus on the WTO DG selection process was very helpful, especially Rufus’ explanation as a Geneva insider of how the process works. There’s some pretty strange happenings out there …
Best, Warren
Hi, Warren. Thanks for your note. WITA put on a great series of interviews with each of the eight candidates and has followed up with these VLOGs. I agree that Rufus’s background at the WTO (and his role as DUSTR for the last years of the Uruguay Round) makes his comments extremely insightful. Wendy’s tenure at USTR and her role at ASPI have been very valuable as well. Interesting times for sure. Best, Terry