2026 News items

DDG Hill cautioned that resilience cannot be taken for granted. She underscored the need to recognize the value of what is already working well within the system, while intensifying efforts to ensure its future resilience by investing in, and strengthening, the multilateral trading system. Rising trade tensions, she added, only sharpen the urgency of the reform efforts members are embarking on.

Against this backdrop, DDG Hill suggested that the key question facing businesses and policymakers is no longer whether another disruption will occur, but which trading route it will affect. Meeting that reality, she argued, demands close cooperation among governments, industry and international organizations. DDG Hill pointed to a recent dialogue with senior executives of leading global shipping companies convened by the WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as an example of such efforts.

Addressing the potential impact of trade disruptions on supply chains, DDG Hill noted that cross-border flows continue at near-historic levels, even as the logic of value creation shifts toward resilience. A 2025 Global Value Chains report notes that GVC-related trade appears to have stabilised at around 46% of total exports in 2024, down modestly from a peak of 48% in 2022.

The challenge that DDG Hill sees for the multilateral trading system is to preserve the benefits of interdependence without tipping into overdependence. DDG Hill stressed the importance of trade diversification, both in terms of supply and demand. She also highlighted the value of WTO rules in preserving stability and predictability in international trade and the shipping ecosystem.

At the same time, she acknowledged that some of the assumptions that have underpinned the trading system are being questioned. DDG Hill highlighted in this context WTO members' efforts to reposition the Organization through much-needed reform to make it more effective and responsive to the contemporary trade realities.

Above all - DDG Hill noted - cooperation is essential to building supply chain resilience. The WTO, she concluded, can work alongside governments and partner organizations to support members as they identify new solutions that are needed to navigate global trade through turbulent waters.