Doha Round politics
World Trade Organization (WTO) countries may have reached agreement a few weeks ago in Geneva on a framework for continuing trade talks, but Rosemary Righter sees problems ahead in this Timesonline analysis: "Stop the world, Jacques Chirac wants to get off"
Her argument: The capable French EU trade negotiator, Pascal Lamy, has been deliberately dropped by President Chirac in order to slow negotiating momentum. In the U.S. Kerry is distinctly wobbly on free trade issues. A Kerry victory may mean less U.S. interest in trade talks. The U.K.'s Peter Mandelson, the new EU trade representative, may be able to take up much of the slack left by Lamy's departure, but it's not clear the U.K. would be willing to push ahead if the U.S. were not interested.
The good news:
- "...Brazil, India and China now actively want the Doha Round to succeed. Brazil, swelling with pride at its recent victories at the WTO against the EU�s infamous sugar regime and America�s equally indefensible cotton subsidies, displayed a convert�s zeal at Geneva...
...as farmland is concreted over, geography and industrialisation are forcing China to shift from land-intensive grain, which it will increasingly import, to labour-intensive fruit and vegetables that it can export. India, whose farmers should be able to hold their own against all-comers, still does not see that nothing would do its farmers more good than a spot of competition. But its burgeoning service industries could make agricultural protectionism expendable as part of the broader bargain.
I began with gloomy reflections about a potential loss of momentum on the Western front. But the prospects for trade liberalisation are brighter today than they have been for five years, because the conspiracy theories about globalisation are losing their allure for the rising stars of the global trade scene. Celso Amorim, Brazil�s Foreign Minister, proudly declared after Geneva that trade is now a multipolar game. The good news is that he appears to be right."
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