In an interview, the executive noted that the proportion of world trade conducted under WTO conditions has declined to 72 percent and could fall further.

This is occurring in a context of the greatest disruption to the international trading system in the last 80 years, she said.

She emphasized that we are experiencing the greatest disruption to global trade rules, unprecedented in the last 80 years.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala gave an interview to Reuters at the start of her second term at the helm of the Geneva-based trade watchdog.

She insisted that it is not surprising that some question the global trading system and its predictability.

Since the Trump administration introduced tariffs, the share of global trade conducted under WTO most-favored-nation terms has fallen by about 80 percent, according to the agency’s data. jdt/mem/rfc