Source:  POLITICO'S MORNING AGRICULTURE, 2/16/21

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the first African and the first woman to lead the World Trade Organization, faces the difficult task of righting the WTO ship after years of waning influence — and amid a tumultuous stretch for global trade, following the Trump administration’s trade battles and coronavirus-related disruptions.

Quick take: The new director-general was previously Nigeria’s finance minister, and she’s also a U.S. dual citizen. As a relative newcomer to the trade world, Okonjo-Iweala could bring a fresh perspective to issues that have vexed negotiators for years, write POLITICO’s Doug Palmer and Sarah Anne Aarup.

— Her selection is also a signal of Africa’s rising influence in global economics. (The continent could also be a major growth area for U.S. farm exports, as Vilsack noted at his confirmation hearing earlier this month.)

Tough to-do list: The clock is now ticking for Okonjo-Iweala to deliver results on a long-sought global fisheries agreement. But the most daunting question she faces is whether the U.S. violated WTO rules when the previous administration unilaterally imposed steel and aluminum tariffs in 2018, citing national security concerns.