Meet the world’s toughest trade negotiator. It’s not Donald Trump.

Indian Prime Minister Modi and Goyal have played no small part in chipping away at the system’s foundations. New Delhi is flexing its economic and geopolitical muscles as the West focuses on the Indo-Pacific and India progresses toward becoming the world’s third-largest economy, forecast to occur by the end of the decade.

“The biggest issue at stake is the system itself,” WTO Director General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala warned in a speech to business leaders ahead of the organization’s March ministerial. “We are at an inflection point. Will we continue to have a reasonably open, integrated and global economy, or will we move toward an increasingly fragmented and divided one?”

India is “desperate” for the WTO — which has long operated on the principle of consensus among its 160-odd members — not to become a forum for willing allies to cobble together smaller deals, said Keith Rockwell, a global fellow at the Wilson Center and former chief spokesperson for the WTO. “But that’s the direction it’s heading, and it’s because of them.”

In Abu Dhabi, Goyal arrived at the cavernous, overly air-conditioned conference center like a rockstar — days late and surrounded by an entourage of aides and Indian media snapping photos of his thousand-watt smile.

In the days that followed, he leveraged the WTO’s need for consensus on various issues to New Delhi’s political and economic advantage. For most negotiators, merely preserving the body’s status quo would have been viewed as a success. India’s trade chief wouldn’t let them.

Shadow of the past

For decades, India had been opposed to striking trade deals, reticent to expose its fledgling industry to foreign competitors. That began to change gradually after Modi came to power in 2014, as India secured deals with Australia, the UAE and a small European group.