Jagdish Bhagwati's new book
Trade Theorist and free trade advocate Jagdish Bhagwati has a new book, In Defense of Globalization from Oxford University Press. The Council on Foreign Relations site on the book has an abstract, a table of contents, and a PDF file of the first chapter. The book is available for about $20 from Amazon.
The Council also provides links to a Bhagwati op-ed from Feb 15, "Why Your Job Isn't Moving to Bangalore", and an Bhagwati interview, "Council's Top Trade Expert Knocks 'Protectionism' of Gephardt and Dean" The Gephardt and Dean references suggest the interview content is dated, but this isn't so. Here Bhagwati describes late Clinton Administration and Bush Administration trade efforts:
- "There was a huge difference between the World Trade Organization's ministerial meeting in Seattle in 1999 and [the WTO meeting in] Cancun last year. President Clinton, by the time he got to Seattle, was probably exhausted from the Uruguay Round [of trade negotiations] that finally culminated with an accord in 1994 and NAFTA battles that continued throughout his time in office. His advisers and he had not thought through the implications of going to Seattle, and the incoming reports of all these demonstrations against "globalization" being planned had not registered. Clinton did not manage it well.
By contrast, Bush came into office wanting to succeed in the Doha round of trade talks. His special trade representative, Robert Zoellick, had actively sought to get the Doha talks launched in Qatar right after 9/11. Then at Cancun, the first ministerial meeting after Doha, one of the sticking points was intellectual property protection for pharmaceuticals. There had been tough restrictions on what could be done by third world countries to supply [drugs to] other third world countries that do not have manufacturing capacity. Restrictions like that did not sit well with a lot of developing countries, and the non-governmental organizations [NGOs] that advised them were up in arms.
We were being denounced by the NGOs and the developing countries. The United States, under pharmaceutical lobby pressure, held out against making the necessary adjustments or concessions. I was convinced that President Bush in the end, more than on any other lobbying issue, would be able to get the drug companies to make concessions: after all, it meant bringing together less than ten CEOs and bribing or threatening them to agree to the necessary concessions, a task that was far more simple than getting numerous powerful lobbying interests in sectors such as agriculture to accept compromises. I was looking therefore to see if we would make the requisite TRIPs/medicines concession at Cancun: that would be a surefire signal that President Bush wanted to make headway in the Doha negotiations. And the administration did mange to make that concession.. That's when I felt that the president was serious about the Doha Round and about ensuring a successful conclusion to this multilateral effort at freeing trade."
- "Can free trade genuinely help the poorest countries?
That's my big concern. There is a difference between the openness of our market and the penetrability of that market. What worries me is whether we can do very much for African exports: for instance, if we open the doors and New Zealand, Argentina, Brazil, and Thailand all get into the markets, but African countries are unable to [compete]. The second problem is that a lot of countries will continue being importers of food. Right now, 42 of the 49 so-called least developed countries are importers of food and agricultural products. The assumption is that if we remove subsidies and raise agricultural prices, somehow they will be able to export to us. That's not so clear. I am accused of being the world's No. 1 free trader, but I know enough about the subject to know that if two people liberalize, a third might be hurt."
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