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This persona was a peace offer from Joe Biden to the EU - and to the rest of the world.
For months, his predecessor Donald Trump had refused to regulate the vacant leadership of the World Trade Organization.
It is well known that Trump despises the consensus-oriented, often sluggish and partially outdated organization.
The ex-president would have loved to bury the WTO entirely.
And so after the premature resignation of General Secretary Roberto Azevêdo last summer, the top position remained vacant.
The organization, which was already in great need of reform and was paralyzed in crucial areas by Washington's policy of blocking, was thus also without a leadership.
The other member states, above all the EU, had already decided in October for the Nigerian Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to be the new Secretary General.
But she couldn't get into office without the US vote, which was still pending.
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After Biden took office, things happened very quickly: at the beginning of February, two weeks after he took office, Biden expressed his support to the former Nigerian finance minister.
On Monday she was appointed the new Secretary General in Geneva, at the headquarters of the organization.
It is a double first: it is the first time that a woman and a candidate from Africa have headed the WTO.
"With Ms. Okonjo-Iweala there is an opportunity to overcome the division of the WTO into industrialized and developing countries," says Anna Cvazzini, the trade spokeswoman for the Greens in the European Parliament.
Closed to China
Biden's quick approval of the personnel was a clear signal to the world, but above all to the EU: The new US administration is relying on talks and the resolution of conflicts not through pressure and unilateral measures, but in established international organizations.
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The time of contradicting, aggressive and often simply chaotic US trade policy in Trump's time seems to be over for now.
“We just don't know what's going on.
There's no announcement from Washington, ”a high-ranking EU official complained to WELT about last year.
Shortly before, the US had announced penal taxes on France.
But nobody in Brussels or Paris knew when, how and whether they would actually take effect.
Above all, however, Biden's move can confirm the EU that its strategy towards China could work.
Despite the hastily concluded investment agreement with China shortly before the turn of the year, the EU intends to act as a single entity with the USA in relation to China.
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As far as trade policy is concerned, reform of the WTO should become the linchpin of a common transatlantic stance towards China.
The EU's new trade strategy will be presented on Thursday
Shortly after Biden's election victory, the EU invited the new US government to cooperate with China in a position paper.
This week, Valdis Dombrovskis, Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for trade policy, will repeat this invitation.
On Thursday he is due to present the EU's new trade strategy.
A draft of the corresponding communication, which WELT has, describes the future trade strategy, how the WTO should be reformed and how the EU Commission envisions the common transatlantic stance on China.
The partnership with the US offers "an opportunity to work together to reform the WTO," says the strategy paper.
And further: "This also includes strengthening them in such a way that they can contribute to sustainable development and combat distortions of competition." The last point is directed against China.
The paper leaves no doubt that the positioning vis-à-vis China will become the central challenge of EU trade policy in the coming years - alongside the fight against climate change and increasing protectionism.
"The rise of China, which shows global ambitions and pursues a distinct state capitalist model, has fundamentally changed the global economic and political order," the authors write.
"Ensuring that China fulfills more obligations in international trade" will become central to EU trade policy, as will "dealing with the negative effects of the state capitalist system."
The WTO is supposed to play a central role in this, but it must first be made fit again.
Even before Trump's blockade policy, the work of the WTO was obsolete in many areas;
the last major round of liberalization, for example, collapsed in 2008.
Above all, the settlement of trade disputes blocked by Trump, the heart of the organization, must be restored as soon as possible.
There is a lot of work ahead of Okonjo-Iweala, who studied development economics at Harvard, worked 25 years at the World Bank in Washington and is considered a tough negotiator.
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“The WTO must be reformed from the ground up in order to be fit for the future,” says Bernd Lange.
The SPD politician is chairman of the European Parliament's trade committee.
"Reforming the dispute settlement mechanism and getting it back to work will not be easy, but I expect a much more productive atmosphere than in the past four years to find solutions."
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