[Lee Jae-min] Stepping back but not stepping away

The single most common question that I hear at conferences and events these days is about the future of the WTO. They ask: After all this, what is in store for the World Trade Organization?

The Geneva-based international organization has been a lynchpin of multilateral trade with 166 members, but it has almost vanished from the radar screen in the face of ever-intensifying trade conflicts and disputes over tariffs, non-tariffs and everything else in many parts of the world. Few media outlets mention the WTO, nor do they cite or cover its officials. The same is also here in Korea, a country probably most loyal to the multilateralism enshrined by the global trade body.

Sad, indeed. It’s sad to see that matters have come to this. It’s disappointing that the WTO is not capable of handling all these matters. It is mind-boggling that so many things are happening outside the WTO.

That said, we should also be mindful of the iceberg under the surface: Despite the hype and publicity over a parade of unprecedented trade deals, much of the global trade is still being done under the umbrella of the WTO. And by extension under FTAs, its offshoots. Ordinary trade being carried out under existing rules is uneventful, so usually not covered and not reported. The voices of select industries at the export forefront tend to color the narratives and occupy public attention. But we should remember that import and export of numerous items we use at home and in factories are taking place all the time beneath the surface. In Korea’s case, even as you read this, trade people are diligent at the ports of Busan, Incheon and Ulsan, and all the others.

For instance, 85 percent of global trade last year was detached from bilateral deals between the US and other trading partners over tariffs. In other words, existing rules continue to apply to the bulk of trade today, invisible and unnoticed. It may explain how Korea has reached a new milestone of $700 billion total exports in 2025, the year-round trade headaches notwithstanding.

In short, the WTO is not as important as before, but it still plays a meaningful role. To be fair, criticism of the WTO needs to be put in sobering perspective: That the WTO is nowhere to be seen is true, but also not true.

It will remain to manage "ordinary" trade. The problem is the other "non-ordinary" trade, which is now forcing itself outside the box of traditional rules. The WTO’s 31-year-old rules are either outdated or missing the point, so this non-ordinary trade is bursting at the seams while Geneva has been failing to respond. This new breed of trade has worn different name tags: supply chains, economic security and then national security. Covered items under the names then include semiconductors, steel, batteries, bioproducts, rare earths and the like. The latest entry into the mix is AI. The race now, and the confusion at present, centers around these select "non-ordinary" trade items. A new regime for this is being tested, though rather forcibly, and rising over the horizon. Tariffs and counter-tariffs in 2025 were the newest symptom of this experiment. We’ll see more robust development on this front in 2026, which keeps us on edge.

Going forward, what will emerge is a dual structure in which two regimes stand in parallel: The WTO manages ordinary trade while another set of special rules (a group of plurilateral arrangements) handles non-ordinary trade in terms of specific members and products. We will have a symbiotic, two-track system.

The WTO’s coverage will further shrink, and its mandate will continue to diminish. And yet, the fact that ordinary trade, at least, is still being managed by the existing regime is both important and reassuring. For the garden-variety, regular international trade in everyday products, that much is usually what we all need. Not fancy but essential. Ordinary people do not necessarily buy economic security items very often. We buy staple products. The WTO is playing and will continue to play a routine role in that sphere.

The bottom line: The WTO will not go away, but its purview will be significantly redefined. The WTO has disappointed us. That is true. However, it is still an important entity even in this volatile world, and the newly defined domain will still be consequential for the global community and for Korea. The going will get tougher for the WTO, but it still has jobs to do. The same goes for FTAs, too.

The more practical question now is how to navigate the two different leagues. This is a completely new game since the inception of the GATT, the forerunner of the WTO established in 1947. For governments and companies, it will be far from simple to switch from one to the other and constantly alternate between the two. They will find themselves facing increased costs, lost opportunities and tightened regulatory grips in many parts of the world. As for Korea, settling in the new experiment and riding it out will shape its tomorrow.

So, the answer to the original question is this: It’s stepping back but not stepping away.

Lee Jae-min

Lee Jae-min is a professor of law at Seoul National University. The views expressed here are the writer’s own. — Ed.