WTO enters 2021 leaderless, amid hopes for renewed U.S. engagement

The key word for the World Trade Organization in 2021 is leadership. Will there be a new director-general to wield it? Can the U.S. reassert it? And will it be enough to pull the WTO out of its deep, dysfunctional hole? The WTO had a rough year. It ends 2020 leaderless, without an Appellate Body, with no set plans for its next ministerial and, again, without any significant outcomes. The pandemic, of course, was one of the main reasons, as...