We live in an inter-dependent world. An isolated India is not in our interest. Just because we are a large country, we cannot be arrogant and think that we can ignore others. We live in a different era. Terrorism is global and can come from even remote countries. International summits and organizations like WTO take decisions which will bind us and if we are not present in such summits, we may be hurt by the decisions taken.
Transferring our sovereignty and decisionmaking power to the WTO, to the United Nations, or any other international body is not in the long-term interests of our people.
Too many countries that do not play by the free trade rules of the World Trade Organization - including, notably mercantilist China and monopolist Saudi Arabia - have been allowed in, to the detriment of both the WTO and the liberal trading environment it is supposed to sponsor.
The WTO has one of the most impressive records in global economic governance, by promoting trade liberalisation and economic development.
The WTO has outlived its usefulness as a setting for trade negotiations. It can still be a good place to resolve disputes (though this can take years) and share ideas, but most countries would be better off choosing their own trading partners and lowering trade barriers at their own pace.
If regional associations are created, they should work on the basis of WTO norms, on the WTO basis.
The world is governed by institutions that are not democratic - the World Bank, the IMF, the WTO.
When China got into the WTO, that allowed it to sell into any other country within the WTO - not just the United States - at the lowest tariffs that country offered. And the other countries could sell into China at the lowest tariffs that China offered. The problem, right off the bat, was that China had much higher tariffs than everywhere else, so the U. S. and Europe in particular got the short end of that stick.
