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[This post is an update on Mr. Christy’s article published in the summer 2008 issue of World Policy Journal.]

If there were trading cards for the Doha Development Round participants, I’d save Falconer’s. The agriculture negotiations chairman, Ambassador Crawford Falconer is my candidate for MVP—it is a shame he is stepping down later this year; he will be missed. Falconer consistently works to strip away the nonsense, politics, and disinformation that dogs these types of negotiations. His reports read like a stern uncle reining in a bunch of wayward nephews—they are direct, utterly sensible, and beyond cavil. There is not a scintilla of wishful thinking. (This, by the way, accords with my personal experience with Falconer, who chaired a World Trade Organization panel proceeding in which I participated.)

Falconer dishes his latest dose of reality in a terse, 4.5-page report dated August 11. He responds directly to the canard that the July mini-ministerial in Geneva fell apart over technical issues regarding the special safeguard measure (SSM)—which allows protection where a surge in imports threatens domestic agriculture producers. Falconer stresses that the U.S.-India disagreement over the SSM is “not some purely ‘technical’ matter,” but rather is political. He then drives the point home by noting the many other difficult issues that the negotiators did not resolve, including cotton from least-developed countries, new tariff quotas for sensitive products, and tariff simplification. He also notes that the members as a whole had not yet vetted the issues where progress was made. His report has been widely accepted as an accurate account.

WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy’s comments on the progress of the talks and the report of Canadian Ambassador Don Stephenson, chair of the negotiations on market access for non-agricultural products (NAMA), have not been so well received. In the view of some members, Lamy’s comments do not accurately present the splits among the members, reporting agreement where none existed. This may be due in part to the fact that Lamy is nearing the end of his term and this may be his last chance to move the talks forward. Certainly, the members have reasons to back away from concessions given the overall failure of the negotiations, but Lamy’s account is overly rosy. As for Stephenson, the United States has attacked his report for mischaracterizing the state of play on sectoral negotiations, which would eradicate tariffs on specified goods (e.g., chemicals). More importantly, Argentina rejected the July 25 compromise draft on NAMA—which serves as the basis of all claims of progress. Because the WTO operates by consensus, Argentina’s rejection of the package suggests that the widely reported progress is illusory. What to make of all of this? Read the rest of this entry »

Now it’s more urgent than ever. The multilateral trading system needs support. And one of the best signals the United States could send would be to propose a moratorium on bilateral trade deals of the sort the Bush administration has pursued in wretched excess. These deals offer paltry advantages, and have major drawbacks, as I argued in an article for the WPJ’s special trade issue.

The urgency stems from the collapse on July 29 of negotiations aimed at securing an agreement in the Doha Round of global trade talks. Those negotiations dragged on for nine days at the World Trade Organization’s Geneva headquarters, only to end in yet another in a series of breakdowns—this time, over whether developing countries could raise emergency tariffs to protect their farmers. Never mind which countries deserve the most blame for the latest fiasco; there has been plenty to spread around since the talks were launched in the Qatari capital of Doha in 2001. The important point is that the debacle increases the risk that the WTO’s authority will undergo a significant erosion in years to come.

Minimizing threats to the WTO’s authority ought to be a top priority of trade policy, because as I contended in my article, the WTO plays a crucial role in fostering global economic stability. The WTO’s centrality to the trading system is already under some doubt, thanks to the proliferation in recent years of bilateral and regional trade agreements. So the global trade body is facing a double whammy in the aftermath of the Doha Round failure. Read the rest of this entry »

From the forthcoming Summer 2008 issue of World Policy Journal.

Many of you are presently suffering from sharp increases in food prices. The main cause of this increase is here to stay since it results from structural changes in the demand for farm products. Reducing farm subsidies and tariffs should help create more room for your own farmers to export thus helping raise their revenues. It should also ensure a better connection between supply and demand. If anyone still wonders why agricultural subsidies and production systems need reform and why this is crucial for Africa, just look in the news everyday!

—World Trade Organization Director-General Pascal Lamy, addressing the African Union Conference of Trade and Finance Ministers, April 3, 2008

In mid-July 2008, trade representatives from World Trade Organization (WTO) member states began meeting in Geneva in an attempt to make a breakthrough towards completing what has been seven years of negotiations on the Doha Development Agenda. There had been political commentary on Doha that was skeptical about the success of the agreement; Barack Obama’s economic policy advisor, Jason Furman, for example, has told the media that it is impossible for the candidate to have an opinion on an agreement “that doesn’t exist.” Still, there is a growing consensus among trade representatives such as Peter Mandelson of the European Commission and Susan Schwab, the U.S. Trade Representative, suggesting that while many complex steps still need to be taken in order to complete Doha, a deal in 2008 must be made. Indeed, the need is critical and immediate, not only to help alleviate the pressure brought on by the spike in global commodities—oil and foodstuffs—and lift African economies out of poverty, but also as a symbol that nations can work together to address global issues.

The fundamental purpose of Doha was not just to create clearer and fairer conditions of global trade, but also to open up new opportunities for growth and development in the world’s most impoverished areas. In turn, millions would be lifted from poverty.

Inextricably linked to Doha’s goal of alleviating poverty was the strong desire among WTO members to issue a global response to what were perceived as the imbalances between rich and poor, powerful and powerless, that have been key drivers of terrorism and global conflict. Doha, while idealistic in its goal, set out in 2001 to develop a new platform for global cooperation that would depart from traditional aid and development programs. These have tended to see money simply flowing from rich to poor nations—if at all—usually with strings attached. Instead, this new platform has sought, by liberalizing trade barriers across the globe, to allow impoverished nations a vehicle to develop their own independent economies and stand on their own feet. Doha had, and continues to have, the profound ambition of restoring dignity to the world’s impoverished. Moreover, any Doha trade liberalization also stands to benefit rich nations such as the United States and those that comprise the EU, who are now more than ever relying on exports to maintain economic dynamism and growth.
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