WTO director-general says calling the trade wars the greatest disruption since the 1930s is 'the understatement of the century'—but it's not a repeat

“I think it’s maybe understatement of the century to say that global trade is facing the greatest disruption in 80 years.” It’s a significant statement from anyone, let alone Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the director-general of the World Trade Organization. She warned at the Fortune Global Forum in Riyadh that the global economy is in its choppiest waters since the 1930s, no small feat considering that decade saw the Great Depression and the outbreak of the Second World War — and the Great Recession of 2008 is still in living memory.

Still,  Dr. Okonjo-Iweala, a Nigerian economist who is the first woman and the first African to lead the World Trade Organization as director-general, insisted that what’s happening isn’t a replay of that dark decade in the early 20th century. “It is functionin