A child inside a burned vehicle belonging to the UN peacekeeping mission for the Democratic Republic of Congo, Monusco, in Nzulo, North Kivu, 28 January 2025. (Keystone/EPA/STR)

Holding the line: how Geneva’s peacebuilders are adapting as aid shrinks. Global conflict is surging, yet funding for peacebuilding is falling away. In Geneva, the sector’s traditional hub, peacebuilders are scrambling to adapt before the system breaks entirely.

💸TRADE. The World Trade Organization’s general council meets this Tuesday and Wednesday, with trade tensions simmering and the US’s stance towards the multilateral body still unclear.

Reform push. Trade ambassadors will hear from Norwegian ambassador Petter Ølberg, tapped last month to lead reform talks ahead of next year’s key ministerial meeting in Cameroon.

The diplomat, who has already held two rounds of informal consultations, wants countries to focus on three tracks – governance, fairness and future challenges – to help bridge divides, as Trade β Blog reports.

Wild card. The biggest question mark remains the US. The Trump administration has frozen funding to the WTO as part of a broader review of US contributions to international organisations, expected to be concluded by early August. The pause has left Geneva guessing whether Washington will disengage with the trade body like it has with others or try to reshape it in its image.

Telling signs. “The fact that the US has not explicitly withdrawn from the WTO gives at least some hope that the Trump Administration sees some potential value in the WTO as an international institution,” notes Bob Staiger, an economist at Dartmouth College. “Beyond that, it is difficult to say at this point whether the US could become a constructive force for needed WTO reforms or rather will continue to be a force for demolition.”

One clue may come from Capitol Hill as the Senate moves forward with confirming Trump’s pick to represent the US at the WTO, Joseph Barloon. A former trade official under the first Trump administration, Barloon, recently described the trade body as “deeply flawed” at a Senate committee hearing and vowed to stand up to countries that violate trade rules.

Tariffs hammer. At the same time, Trump is again wielding tariffs as a negotiating weapon to pressure governments into making bilateral trade deals. A revised deadline for sweeping duties on dozens of countries expires on 1 August.

Pushback. In a proposal circulated last week, China called on the WTO to step up oversight of unilateral tariffs and bilateral trade deals, arguing that some recent deals – including those by major players – might breach trade rules –another sign of China’s counter-strategy, positioning itself as multilateralism’s chief defender.

Dead in the water. Notably absent from this week’s agenda: the stalled negotiations on the second phase of the WTO’s agreement to curb harmful fisheries subsidies. With talks deadlocked and India and others refusing to budge on key demands, Iceland’s ambassador Einar Gunnarsson, who is stepping down as chair, has floated the idea of pausing discussions altogether, according to Trade β Blog.

– By Michelle Langrand