Opinion by Maria Zakharova on interview by WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

💬 WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala gave a wonderful interview (https://asia.nikkei.com/Editor-s-Picks/Interview/WTO-chief-warns-on-very-costly-fragmentation-of-global-economy) to a leading Japanese financial newspaper.

Who do you think she accused of suspending the trade globalisation process? You might think it would be Russia or China. But no.

The WTO Director-General said that free global trade has faced headwinds of revision since 2017, when US President Donald Trump withdrew America from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Under his successor, Joe Biden, the US has sought to limit China’s access to advanced technology in semiconductors and other areas, enlisting partners like Japan and some European nations in a strategy they call “de-risking,” Okonjo-Iweala said. Let me remind you that the fragmentation of world trade is one of the main reasons for the drop in global GDP.

According to Okonjo-Iweala, if the United States continues to decimate trade and logistics routes and break product supply chains, like it did by introducing unilateral anti-Russia sanctions, the total global GDP will decrease by 5 percent: this is as if the world lost the entire economy of Japan.

Russia has said (https://t.me/MFARussia/18195) many times that the Western sanctions were destructive, including for the West itself. It is not only about the galloping inflation or skyrocketing energy prices, but about the very attempt to restructure global trade, which Washington has been doing actively under Trump and Biden, thus harming the global economy. The fact that the Americans are slowing down the growth of their own economy this way, including the real decline in the potential of heavy industry, does not seem to be a matter of great concern for politicians in the United States, because their main competitors, the Europeans, are suffering even more, and in the current environment they cannot oppose Washington.

The main point is that the US is compensating its losses with military aggression all over the world, inciting conflicts and using the strategy of controlled (as they think) chaos.  (comment Amarynth:  How many times have I referred to the fact that we are in a strategy of chaos!)

Okonjo-Iweala warns the world against splitting the global trade map into two blocks, as it was during the Cold War.

Now let’s hope that the US Department of the Treasury and the US Department of Commerce don’t introduce sanctions against her for her dangerous free thinking. 🫣