Mexico 2013 Blog: Mexico's WTO Candidate and the Country's Global Role
What would having a Mexican leading the top trade multilateral mean for the country on the international stage? Mexico's WTO candidate shared his perspective in remarks and an interview at AS/COA.
In the competition to for the next head of the top global trade multilateral, no fewer than three of the nine candidates hail from Latin America. Mexico’s Herminio Blanco, Brazil’s Roberto Carvalho de Azevêdo, and Costa Rica’s Anabel González are in the race that's currently underway for the director-general post at the World Trade Organization.
AS/COA hosted Blanco for remarks on April 4 and caught up on the sidelines for an interview that explored, among other topics, what it could mean on a global level to have a Mexican leading the WTO. Blanco, a chief negotiator in the North-American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), had this to say:
| I think that what President Enrique Peña Nieto is doing and his vision of Mexico is a Mexico that has more presence in the world—a Mexico that grows faster, a Mexico that is more competitive. And in that sense, a Mexican being the head of the World Trade Organization would be recognition of Mexico as an important player in world trade.
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Asked about how he evaluates NAFTA as the agreement approaches its twentieth birthday, he said: “It has gone way far beyond my wildest dreams…if somebody would have told me, in 20 years Mexico will be exporting more than a billion dollars per day, I would say, ‘You must be crazy.’”
Read the full text of the interview here.
Watch Blanco’s April 4 remarks at AS/COA: