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Leading article: The trade talks are over. What now?

Wednesday, 30 July 2008

The breakdown of the world trade talks in Geneva yesterday is profoundly disappointing to those – including our own Prime Minister – who claimed them as the most important economic negotiations of the new century. Indeed the talks, started in 2001, have lasted most of this century. Little wonder that some of their particpants still hope that they can be revived after a summer pause.

Perhaps. But it is doubtful. By then, the United States will be in the full swing of an election which could produce a more protectionist president. But the current economic slowdown will still be under way, changing the politics as well as the economics of opening up countries to imports. That has been the difficulty of these negotiations – the so-called Doha Round of talks between the 35 member countries of the World Trade Organisation. They have lasted so long.

When they began, those seven long years ago, the world was much simpler and the issues appeared clearer. Doha was meant to take the individual improvements made in the previous decade towards a dismantling of tariffs and trade barriers between rich and poor and wrap up a grand new deal that would propel the process of globalisation a great leap forward. Since then, however, the whole map has been altered by the industrial take-off of China and India. While the developed countries, led by the US, have pressed even harder for access to these rapidly-developing markets, they in turn have proved much tougher in their negotiations, arguing that the western nations were able to grow rapidly only with a degree of initial protection of their markets. So must the developing world.

It is on this point more than any other that the talks appear to have foundered. A tragedy? Not necessarily. The hopes imposed on Doha were always greater than the practice would bear. The slowdown that would have made an agreement more timely economically also made it politically more difficult. There is still plenty that can be achieved at the bilateral and regional level. Is it the end of the story? Again not necessarily. Good progress had been made in Geneva, not least in the agricultural concessions offered by the EU and the US. The point is to try and protect the weakest and most vulnerable while the rich – and the fast-enriching – sort out matters between themselves.

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Ehm... Facts, facts, facts : who hasn't done their homework?
the WTO has 153 member countries, not 35. The July Geneva talks took place in a variety of formats, notably the "green room meetings" among a representative group of about 30-40 trade ministers representing a "full spectrum of members' views and interests." Each representative then reported back to his/her delegation, where the day's proposals could be either approved or rejected. there were also reports in front of the whole assembly of members.
All this - and more - can be found on the WTO website.
Raymond Perrez,
Toulouse, France

Posted by Raymond Perrez | 31.07.08, 13:38 GMT

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Although I wouldn't go as far as the eminent Dr. Siglitz, Idid dub the talks "Highway to Nowhere". I have participated in so many of them as a diplomat and advised in so many others as a consultant, that I wasn't overly optimistic about the outcome. I kept wondering about the principle of "special and differential treatment" for developing countries. The key element in these types of negotiations is that in reality the more the richer countries give, is the more benefits they will earn. The maths comes out as a positive outcome everytime. I hope that the talks are re-stated soon. The situation on the ground with food and energy induced problems as well as others is chaotic and getting worse every day.
Let's get it right next time.

Posted by Carl | 30.07.08, 22:04 GMT

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Although I wouldn't go as far as the eminent Dr. Siglitz, Idid dub the talks "Highway to Nowhere". I have participated in so many of them as a diplomat and advised in so many others as a consultant, that I wasn't overly optimistic about the outcome. I kept wondering about the principle of "special and differential treatment" for developing countries. The key element in these types of negotiations is that in reality the more the richer countries give, is the more benefits they will earn. The maths comes out as a positive outcome everytime. I hope that the talks are re-stated soon. The situation on the ground with food and energy induced problems as well as others is chaotic and getting worse every day.
Let's get it right next time.

Posted by Carl | 30.07.08, 21:59 GMT

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Goodbye and good riddance to the Doha fraud. Dubbed the "Development Round" for its alleged focus on overcoming poverty and underdevelopment in the South, it was, like its predecessors, a manifestly undemocratic effort by the rich countries to pry open poor country markets to their subsidized exports while allowing the North to protect favoured constituencies, like agribusiness -- and the poor be damned. No less a capitalist than former world Bank chief economist and Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, has denounced the talks as a cruel hoax perpetrated on the poor by the privileged. Lets hope the WTO and the brutal corporate globalization it represents follows the Doha deceit into history. let us also hope that the accelerating shift of economic and political power to the South allows the developing world to transform the global economy into a true vehicle for progress

Posted by Mike in Brooklyn | 30.07.08, 19:30 GMT

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it seems to me if for nearly 8 yrs whilst the talks have been going on, and the world have no agreement on trade, business seems to have gone on quite happily without it, it has shown that the talks are irrelevant.

Posted by anthony wong | 30.07.08, 07:44 GMT

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