The multilateral trading system is under pressure from several directions at once. The return of broad-based protectionism and the weaponization of trade policy as a geopolitical instrument are accelerating fragmentation in ways that disproportionately affect smaller economies and countries from the Global South. The World Trade Organization’s (WTO’s) dispute settlement system remains paralyzed, and its authority to set binding rules is increasingly contested. At the same time, regional and bilateral agreements are expanding. They now cover not only tariffs and market access, but also industrial policy, climate standards, and supply chain governance. Yet instead of creating a coherent new architecture, they risk producing overlapping and sometimes contradictory frameworks.

This session takes a wide-angle view. Rather than examining any single agreement in depth, it asks what the cumulative effect of these shifts means for the rules-based trading order and where entry points still exist for rebuilding common ground in a system that is fracturing faster than it is being reformed.