Angela Merkel on World Trade Organization
TL;DR
Angela Merkel strongly advocates for preserving and improving the World Trade Organization's multilateral trade rules for global prosperity.
Key Points
The former Chancellor delivered the seventh lecture in the WTO Presidential Lecture Series on March 7, 2025.
She stated that multilateral trade regulated worldwide has made it possible for industrialized, emerging, and developing countries to benefit.
Merkel stressed the need to preserve and improve multilateralism as a key tool to foster international collaboration and expand women's participation in trade.
Summary
Angela Merkel, in her capacity as former German Chancellor, has expressed a strong commitment to the World Trade Organization and the system of multilateral trade it underpins. She delivered a lecture at the WTO headquarters emphasizing that the established rules have enabled global prosperity, benefiting industrialized, emerging, and developing nations alike. Merkel views the regulated worldwide trade system as a mechanism that generates prosperity without monetary cost, making it rewarding for all participants to utilize for their advantage. She explicitly warned that solely focusing on national security issues at the expense of the system would cause global prosperity to shrink.
Her perspective implies that negotiation and compromise, central to multilateralism, require empathy, urging actors to understand others' positions to reach effective agreements. This contrasts with protectionism, which she framed as being self-interested and fearful of external problems. Furthermore, she highlighted the importance of the WTO in fostering international collaboration, specifically stressing its role in expanding women's participation in trade through equal economic opportunities, particularly in diversifying supply chains.
Frequently Asked Questions
Angela Merkel delivered a lecture at the WTO in March 2025 where she strongly supported the organization's rules for fostering global prosperity. She argued that multilateral trade benefits all types of economies, not just industrialized ones. She also connected the system's health to the empowerment of women in economic spheres.
Angela Merkel views multilateralism as a positive approach requiring understanding of others' perspectives to reach compromises, ultimately promoting global prosperity. Conversely, she described protectionism as a self-centered stance that ignores international problems and risks shrinking the world's overall wealth.
Based on recent public engagements, Angela Merkel maintains a consistent, strong advocacy for the WTO and the rules-based multilateral trading system. Her consistent support was noted by the WTO Director-General, who called her a stalwart supporter of the system.
Sources6
WTO / MERKEL TRADE CONCERNS | UNifeed
World Trade Organization chief says US concerns on tariffs need to be heard | AP News
WTO / MERKEL TRADE CONCERNS | UNifeed
Today: Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel delivers the WTO Presidential Lecture on Friday, March 7, 2025 at the WTO's headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.
* This is not an exhaustive list of sources.