The Director-General of the World Trade Organisation, WTO, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has revealed that the ripple effect of the US President Donald Trump’s administration tariffs is the greatest disruption in trade in 80 years.
Okonjo-Iweala made this disclosure at the CNN Global Perspectives conference.
We recalls that on April 3, Trump announced sweeping global tariffs on all imports into America, leading to a bout of several global trade events.
Okonjo-Iweala, speaking on the numerous tariff impositions at the event, said it was the greatest disruption in trade in 80 years.
“You can see the battering by the fact that the Most Favoured Nation, MFN, trade came down from 80 percent to 72 percent.
“But, there is also one thing that has come up which I know that all nations are taking account of: the system was built for interdependence, not over dependence,” she said.
The ex-Managing-Director of the World Bank stressed that many nations had become too overdependent on the US for market demand and on China for critical supplies.
“So, this is also a wake-up call to try to diversify your sources of demand and supply,” she added.
According to her, global trade and the system built over 80 years has broadly delivered prosperity to all nations.