By Philip Blenkinsop and Andrea Shalal
BRUSSELS/WASHINGTON, Oct 29 (Reuters) - Faced with a veto
from the United States, the World Trade Organization has two
unpalatable options for selecting its next leader - override its
biggest paymaster with a vote or hope for a change of U.S.
president and wait until he takes charge.
With just days to go before the U.S. election, Donald
Trump's administration struck another blow to the global trade
watchdog on Wednesday by rejecting Nigeria's Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala, the woman proposed by a nomination "troika" to be
the WTO's next director-general.
The woman who would be the first African WTO leader is also
a U.S. citizen.
In a short statement, the office of the U.S. Trade
Representative said it supported rival candidate, South Korean
trade minister Yoo Myung-hee, as someone with hands-on
experience in international trade.
One Geneva-based diplomat said Washington changed direction
"in a chaotic" way in the very last throes of the leadership
race to support Yoo, blocking the process.
"It seems like they were improvising," the diplomat said.
William Reinsch, a former senior Commerce Department
official now with the Center for Strategic and International
Studies, predicted furious discussions behind the scenes to get
the United States to change its position.
Trump has described the WTO as "horrible" and biased towards
China and threatened to leave and it is difficult to imagine his
administration would acquiesce by Nov. 9, when the WTO will hold
a meeting designed to appoint its new leader.
Even if he loses the election, he will remain in office
until January 20, making any early resolution even less likely.
It would not be the first time the WTO has faced a roadblock
over its leadership. It has in the past found ways round them.
In 1999, two candidates divided WTO members, with a
compromise finally found to give each a term. New rules were
then put in place to avoid a repeat.
Candidates least likely to attract a consensus "shall
withdraw", the 2003 rules say, with a vote to be taken "as a
last resort". Korea's Yoo could withdraw, but her team did not
respond on Thursday to questions about her future intentions.
HUMILIATION
A vote may appear an easy fix, but is more a nuclear option.
Simon Evenett, trade professor at Switzerland's University
of St Gallen, said large WTO members would see this as an
unwelcome precedent.
"Big players like subtle vetos. Publicly losing a vote is
humiliating," he said.
Washington might see recourse to a vote almost as an act of
war. It is not even clear how WTO members would decide to hold
one.
This leaves a final possibility, relying on a change of U.S.
president.
Rufus Yerxa, a former senior U.S. trade official who now
heads the National Foreign Trade Council, said the result of the
U.S. election would be decisive.
"For the people in Geneva that are trying to make this
decision, the election will determine if they're going to be in
another showdown fight... or whether they can afford to wait him
out and deal with the Biden administration," he said.
One senior U.S. trade official said that, if Democratic
challenger Joe Biden won, WTO members would be well-advised to
hold off until he took office. Biden, he added, would be anxious
to "get off on the right foot" with the WTO.
The United States has already disabled the WTO's role as a
global trade arbiter by blocking appointments to its Appellate
Body, which acts like a supreme court of trade. Could it manage
further months without a leader?
In theory, the director-general's role is limited. He or she
runs a secretariat of over 600 people, a job the current deputy
director-generals can fulfil.
Pascal Lamy, WTO director-general from 2005 to 2013, says
the lack of clarity creates a margin for manoeuvre, subject to
WTO members acquiescing.
"They can lend you authority. It's limited and on lease.
They don't give it to you, they lend it to you. You need a
vision, and a desire to take this organisation from A to B," he
said.
This role, part facilitator, part visionary, in multilateral
trade would be missing.