2034: A Trade and Economy Scenario

It’s a gloomy Monday morning. You’ve just arrived at the WTO headquarters to meet with counterparts from other Geneva-based missions. Your first meeting is on a proposed roadmap to harmonising tariffs for a particular industrial component—a topic that feels insignificant given the geopolitical currents swirling outside these walls. You settle into your seat alongside your counterparts. One leans over and whispers, “Another day in paradise.”

You glance up and offer a thin smile. The last few weeks have been particularly challenging for the WTO. There has been a sense of unease and worry hanging over trade officials and diplomats ever since speculation began that one of the world’s largest economies might leave the organisation. It’s another moment in a long line of challenges for the WTO and trade negotiators. Trade rhetoric everywhere has turned inward, dominated by talk of sovereignty, national resilience, and breaking the dependence on foreign markets.

At the same time, many countries are leaning heavily on AI tools for trade policy. In recent years, there has been a growing tendency for these tools to reinforce nationalistic positions, often sidelining economic realities. The algorithms seem to train themselves to align with the increasingly protectionist worldviews of their leaders. It’s a dynamic that’s caused growing unease in Geneva, where the WTO has struggled to keep its footing in an increasingly fractured global landscape. Some diplomats joke about negotiating with “diplobots” instead of people. Others find it less funny.

On the other hand, your country has taken a cautious, almost hesitant approach to AI in diplomacy. Despite early experiments with AI tools, fears around data security, lack of transparency, and mistrust of automation have led you down a different path. Senior diplomats often insist that “real negotiations happen face-to-face.” 

As a mid-level advisor, you feel the consequences firsthand. You lean on AI for research—sifting through trade flows, historical data, and modelling scenarios—but that’s where its role ends. When other nations deploy AI agents to thrash out compromises in hours, you’re stuck piecing together insights manually. 

Back in the meeting room and one of the delegates is wrapping up their PowerPoint presentation. Suddenly, your attention moves to your tablet, which buzzes with a priority news alert. The headline pops up in bold letters that one of the world’s largest economies has announced their withdrawal from the WTO.

For a second, you think you misread it. Then, a ripple of movement sweeps through the room. Phones light up. Devices ping. The presenter stops speaking. Someone mutters, “It’s actually happening.”

You scroll down the alert and find the official video—a statement delivered by an AI-generated spokesperson with flawless diction and an unnerving calm. “The global trading system no longer aligns with our national interests. Effective immediately, we are withdrawing from the WTO.”

A fictional digital advert from the future: nation states are finding a range of different ways to compete with each other on trade policy.

What happens if there is a patchwork of nations adopting more or less sophisticated AI tools? And what happens when AI trade negotiators reinforce or manipulate the preferences of their owners?