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The WTO Is Broken — and India Is Building Around It
The institution meant to govern world trade is heading into its worst crisis since it was founded in 1995. And while Geneva argues about reform, India quietly signed nine trade agreements covering 38 countries. Sometimes the best response to a broken system is to build your own table.
Santhosh Vishwamitra
·
March 9, 2026
The System Is Cracking
The World Trade Organization was built in 1995 on one idea: trade disputes should be settled by rules, not by the size of your economy. For two decades, it worked. Then in December 2019, the WTO's Appellate Body — its highest court — went dark after the US blocked new judge appointments. Countries can still file and win disputes. But there is no working appeals mechanism to enforce outcomes. Major economies now "appeal into the void" — a legal trick that lets them ignore adverse rulings indefinitely. The backdrop to the 14th WTO Ministerial Conference (MC14) in Yaoundé, Cameroon this March is therefore bleak. Members cannot agree on what "reform" even means. The WTO's Director-General has urged middle powers to "show leadership" rather than wait for Washington. No one is holding their breath.
Countries can win trade disputes at the WTO. There is just no working court left to enforce them.
Trump Tariffs — The Accelerant
Trump's second-term tariff blitz — 145% on Chinese goods, broad tariffs on allies, rejection of the Most-Favoured-Nation principle — has not just bent WTO rules. It has walked away from the architecture entirely. The irony is complete: the country that built the post-war trading order is now its most aggressive demolisher. The consequences fall hardest on smaller developing nations, who have lost their main legal shield against coercion from larger powers. UNCTAD's 2026 warning is blunt — economic inequality has allowed powerful states to coerce smaller economies into silence, and the WTO's broken dispute system can no longer stop them.
India's Quiet Trade Revolution
While Geneva argues, India has been moving. In a decade that the government is calling a "trade transformation," India has signed nine free trade agreements spanning 38 countries — each one negotiated from a position of increasing confidence and economic weight. The India–UK Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement was signed in July 2025. The India–Oman CEPA in December 2025. The India–EU FTA was concluded on January 27, 2026 — followed by a framework interim agreement with the United States on February 7, 2026. That last one matters enormously: a US-India trade framework, however preliminary, is a signal that Washington sees New Delhi as a partner worth locking in even as it wages economic war on almost everyone else.
The India–EU deal is the most strategically significant of the lot. The agreement provides preferential access across 97% of EU tariff lines covering 99.5% of trade value, with 70.4% of tariff lines — accounting for 90.7% of India's exports — seeing immediate duty elimination. Textiles, leather, gems, jewellery, tea, coffee, spices — sectors that employ tens of millions of Indians — now have competitive access to one of the world's largest consumer markets. This is not just trade diplomacy. It is structural economic architecture being built in real time.
The Honest Caveat
India's FTA surge deserves real credit — but it also comes with an honest caveat the government tends to gloss over. Signing an agreement is the beginning of economic work, not the end. India's track record of actually utilising FTA benefits has been patchy. Domestic exporters, particularly small and medium enterprises, often lack the documentation, compliance capacity, and awareness to claim preferential tariffs they are legally entitled to. The government's own data shows certificates of origin issued in FY 2024-25 rose to 720,996 — up from 684,724 the previous year — which sounds impressive until you realise that number represents only a fraction of eligible exporters actually using the agreements. The gap between what is signed and what is utilised remains a structural problem India has not yet solved.
Editorial View · Santhosh Vishwamitra
India Is Doing the Right Thing — Now It Needs to Execute
The WTO is not getting fixed at MC14. The reform agenda has been on the table since 2015. The Appellate Body will not be resurrected while Washington blocks it. That is the reality — and against it, India's FTA blitz is exactly the right strategy. You build the market access you need bilaterally because the multilateral system cannot deliver it. Nine agreements, 38 countries, the EU, the UK, the US framework — this is real and it matters. But deals on paper are not the same as dollars in exporters' pockets. India now needs to invest in FTA utilisation with the same energy it put into signing them. The hard work starts after the handshake.
The Bottom Line
The WTO is broken and no one in Geneva has a credible plan to fix it fast. India is right to build around it. The question now is whether New Delhi can turn its trade agreements from headlines into livelihoods — for farmers, for exporters, for the 1.4 billion people these deals are ultimately supposed to serve.
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