World trade negotiations since Cancun
Peter Gallagher summarized developments in Doha Round world trade negotiations since the failure of the Cancun talks in this December 9 blog posting: "Limp in October, too late in December ". The Doha Round is important since it is aimed at world wide relaxation of trade restrictions - as opposed to the partial and fragmented approach represented by regional agreements like the Central American Free Trade Area). Gallagher's column doesn't address efforts to create these regional agreements.
Gallagher sees the U.S. and Europe missing an opportunity for exercising leadership to get talks back on track in October.
- "...There was a period, in early October, when it was clear that the consequences of their actions had started to dawn on the leadership of the African/Carribbean/Least-Developed group of countries who had pulled the plug at Canc�n. They had given away their best opportunity to keep up the pressure on the EU over agricultural export subsidies and on the USA over domestic subsidies to e.g. Cotton farmers.
The leadership of the G-21 group of developing country agricultural exporters (Brazil, Egypt, Argentina, South Africa ... although perhaps not India) were obviously shocked by the early termination of the Canc�n meeting and were undoubtedly ready to re-engage on agriculture. They thought they had been close to a win at Canc�n when the talks went belly-up over investment etc.
Despite behind-the-scenes pressure from Cairns Group members including Australia, however, neither the EU nor the USA was willing to 'take charge' of the talks after the collapse by offering a new way forward on key problem areas such as agricultural subsidies or industrial tariffs. Both USTR Zoellick and EU Commissioner Lamy retired to lick their wounds over the failure of their pre-Canc�n strategizing and to shield themselves from the inevitable recriminations..."
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