Geneva trade official backs WTO, says it serves US interests

GENEVA — The director of a key multilateral trade agency says she is worried about efforts to “exaggerate” the shortcomings of the World Trade Organization and insists the trade body “serves the U.S.’s interests.”

International Trade Centre Executive Director Arancha Gonzalez stopped short of directly criticizing President Donald Trump, who has had harsh words for the World Trade Organization. The centre is an agency of the WTO and the United Nations.

But speaking Wednesday at the U.N. compound in Geneva, Gonzalez disagreed with Trump’s bid to work around the multilateral system championed by the WTO by making bilateral deals with individual countries.

She said: “I worry a lot about the World Trade Organization, and I worry because I see a tendency today to exaggerate its (faults) and ignore its successes — and I think this is not good.”