AMMAN - HE Dr. Talal Abu-Ghazaleh has  affirmed his steadfast support for the keynote address delivered by his longtime friend and World Trade Organization (WTO) former Director-General HE Pascal Lamy, at the CUTS Roundtable Discussion held in Geneva on 17 September 2025. Lamy laid out a comprehensive three-timescale framework to navigate short-term, medium-term, and long-term pressures on the global trading system.
In the short term, Pascal Lamy spoke about US trade policy saying, “It is the only country on the planet that has gone through three full-scale episodes of large-scale protectionism in the last 150 years,” stating that no other country has experienced a succession of protectionist episodes like it has.
He noted that a sustained 20% tariff fence would not trigger a global collapse, noting that, “Global market capitalism is extremely effective at absorbing such relative price changes. This adjustment will happen without major global consequences, provided we avoid contamination and continue our trade diversification.”
In the medium term, Lamy warned that rising geopolitical tensions are reshaping trade rules, “Russia has invaded Ukraine. Israel is invading Palestine. The US-China rivalry has intensified. We are back to power games. This has a direct impact on international trade, shifting the balance between efficiency and security.” He urged WTO members to pursue a focused dialogue on national security exceptions to prevent unwarranted trade fragmentation.
In the long term, Lamy said, “In the past, trade measures were designed to protect producers. Today, they increasingly aim to protect people. The real obstacle to trade now lies in the discrepancies between measures that have broadly similar objectives, for example in health, environmental protection, or digital regulation.” These differences stem from how each country defines and manages risk, shaped by its unique cultural, historical and geographic context, making it difficult to align precautionary standards across borders without creating unintended barriers to trade.
He called for a new WTO doctrine on reducing risks to public health, safety, the environment or digital security (precautionism); leveraging existing agreements and dispute-settlement jurisprudence; and re-centering capacity-building as a core WTO mission.
In his concluding remarks, he underscored two reform imperatives:
Revitalizing the dispute settlement system and expanding the Multilateral Platform for Interim Appeals to restore credibility.
Empowering the WTO secretariat with initiative rights, unlocking its “extraordinary expertise” to shepherd doctrine development and technical assistance.
Dr. Abu-Ghazaleh said, “As HE Pascal Lamy has so eloquently pointed out, the multilateral trading system stands at a pivotal crossroads. As a long-time friend and advisor to the WTO, his counsel has been instrumental in shaping trade policy for decades. Today, I join him in championing a forward-looking WTO doctrine that balances protection with precaution, that deepens capacity-building and preserves the fundamental rules that underpin global prosperity.”
He concluded by saying, “I thank HE Pascal Lamy for his excellent suggestions to make the WTO a forward looking institution. I hope these are taken on onboard and implemented by the WTO without delay.”
Dr. Abu-Ghazaleh expressed his great appreciation for Mr. Lamy, saying: “Having served with him on the organization’s board and panel since its inception, I have full confidence in his abilities and truly value his remarkable achievements”.