Executive summary

The multilateral trading system overseen by the World Trade Organization was created just over 75 years ago based on the vision that fostering interdependence among economies would play a crucial role in achieving peace and prosperity. This vision had emerged as a central lesson from three disastrous decades of deglobalization, marked by two world wars, the Great Depression, and political extremism. For three-quarters of a century it has guided policymakers as they laid the foundations for the integrated world we inhabit today.