World leaders have signed off on an agreement which reaffirms a basic commitment by the world’s biggest economies to multilateral trade and a “rules-based international order”, but bows to US demands for urgent reform of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Agreement on a joint communique was by no means guaranteed at the beginning of the summit, when US negotiators took hardline positions, rejecting any mention of multilateralism, the “rules-based order” or the role of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as a global safety net.
