How are things going in

How are things going in Cancun?

Arnold Kling surveyed various Cancun sites and postings on Tuesday the 9th, here: "Cancun Trade Talks". Kling is skeptical that these trade talks matter much.

Kling points out that free trader Ronald Bailey is reporting from Cancun for Reason magazine. Bailey incorporates reporting into essentially editorial columns. He's done three so far:

• "BioPiracy and Other Myths":(Sep 12) "Cancun—"No Patents on Life," is one the most frequently heard slogans among anti-globalization activists at the World Trade Organization's 5th Ministerial meeting. It is part of a fierce fight over intellectual property rights. Who has the right to make pharmaceuticals and who has the right to grow genetically enhanced crop plants are hotly in dispute at the WTO conference."


• "Poor Substitutes":(Sep 11) "...Today, the poor gathered in Cancun mainly at the behest of NGOs from the rich countries did storm barricades. Atleast one protestor died: a Korean who committed suicide to bring attention to the injustices that he believed are being wrought by the developed world and the WTO. It is horrible and sad to think that he died believing that his sacrifice might help the world's poor people to live better lives..." But, according to Bailey, the poor are being misled by NGO "fair traders" advancing social and environmental agendas which will actually slow developing country growth.


• "Cancun Delusions":(Sep 10) "Cancun, Mexico—The World Trade Organization's fifth ministerial meeting will get under way tomorrow here in this Caribbean resort fringed with white sand beaches. Hopping off of the airplane, I immediately rushed through police blockades to get to the anti-globalization "teach-in" being run by the International Forum on Globalization (IFG). I was anxious to hear what these passionate anti-globalizers would have to say about agricultural subsidies. Why?

  "Because the most important achievement of this WTO ministerial would be substantial progress toward truly free trade in agricultural goods..." Bailey was disappointed by what he heard.

The Economist reports (here: "The sword and the shield") on the emergence of the "Group of 22" (the group is growing, a Financial Times story on Thursday said it was initially a group of 16, had grown to 21):

"THE European Union and the United States between them account for about half the world’s trade. In the past, world trade talks, however many countries chipped in, came down in the end to a tête-à-tête between these two giant trading blocks. But at this week’s crucial meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Cancún, Mexico, both America and the EU are contending with the new block on the block: a growing coalition of developing countries—once dubbed the G20, now grown into the G22—which demands that America and Europe do more to free trade, while the poor world does less.

"The G22 is led by poor but populous countries such as China, India, Brazil and South Africa. While this group cannot claim to do half the world’s trade, it can claim to represent half of the world’s population. On Tuesday night, it tabled a set of radical proposals on agriculture to rival the much more cautious plans agreed last month between the EU and America. India, one of the leaders of the G22, has accused the rich countries of negotiating with “a sword and a shield”. But the description is perhaps more apt for the G22’s own proposals. It wants America and the EU to dismember their lavish systems of agricultural protection, whilst it shields its own."

They want to keep their own trade barriers while pressing the developed world to reduce or eliminate its barriers. The problem with this, as the Economist points out, is that most of the trade benefits accruing to developing countries would accrue from trade within the developing world. A "World Bank analysis suggests that 80% of the benefits reaped by poor countries from farm reform [trade reform - Ben] would come from reductions in the barriers between poor countries themselves."