bob W
--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> On Jul 22, 2007, at 1:40 PM, Chuck wrote:
>
> > Quite a few analysts give credit to the movement
> for torpedoing the
> > WTO.
>
> It may have emboldened a couple of delegations at
> the Seattle talks,
> leading to their breakdown. But that was almost 8
> years ago. They
> began another round of trade talks in Doha in late
> 2001, and those
> have stalled because of a complex set of
> disagreements among the
> members. See the NYT piece below. Unless this is a
> conspiracy of the
> pig media to deny the power of puppets, Seattle
> doesn't figure in
> this at all.
>
> > You don't hear much about the WTO these days, do
> you?
>
> It was on the front of the NYT biz section just
> yesterday.
>
> Doug
>
> ----
>
> New York Times - July 21, 2007
>
> After Six Years, the Global Trade Talks Are Just
> That: Talk
> By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
>
> WASHINGTON, July 20 — Soon after Sept. 11, 2001, the
> United States
> helped start a round of global trade talks aimed at
> getting rich
> countries to lower trade barriers so that poor
> countries could
> prosper by exporting goods, not terrorism. But it
> was never that simple.
>
> Six years later, the trade talks are on life
> support, suffering from
> so many disputes that like the victim in Agatha
> Christie's "Murder on
> the Orient Express," almost everyone could be guilty
> of killing them
> off.
>
> There are disputes pitting Europe against the United
> States, rich
> countries against poor countries, and farming
> countries against
> industrial countries.
>
> But a major new factor in the deadlock is a global
> economic
> realignment that has vaulted China, India and Brazil
> into the top
> tier of the world's emerging markets, much to the
> concern of other
> developing countries like Mexico, Chile and
> Thailand.
>
> India and Brazil are refusing to lower their tariffs
> out of fear of
> export-driven economies like China's. A second tier
> of developing
> countries that are trying to compete with India and
> Brazil are
> complaining that they are being shut out by India,
> Brazil and other
> rapidly developing countries. Meanwhile, the poorest
> of the poor
> countries in Africa and elsewhere charge that the
> richer emerging
> market economies, which portray themselves as
> champions of the poor,
> are actually ignoring their needs.
>
> "There is no value in blaming any single country
> over the state of
> our negotiations," Peter Mandelson, the top European
> trade
> negotiator, said in an interview. "But this is not a
> classic North-
> South conflict. It is also South-South. The
> developed countries and
> the emerging economies have a responsibility to help
> the poorer
> countries."
>
> Failure of the global trade talks is widely seen as
> potentially
> damaging to the world economy, which is powered by
> more than $10
> trillion in trade of goods and services annually.
> The World Bank
> calculates that a new trade deal could add hundreds
> of billions of
> dollars to the world's income.
>
> This week, the World Trade Organization in Geneva
> tried to resolve
> the trade impasse by proposing compromises by all
> sides. On Friday,
> Robert B. Zoellick, president of the World Bank,
> urged the parties to
> heed the call for a middle ground. "The global
> community should stay
> focused on the prize," he said, adding that "all
> economies should be
> able to benefit" from a deal.
>
> It was a pointed appeal, because Mr. Zoellick served
> as the United
> States trade envoy when the current talks were
> started in Doha, Qatar
> in 2001, as a "development round" to aid the poor.
>
> The impasse has grown bitter, however.
>
> Last month, Susan C. Schwab, the United States trade
> representative,
> charged that India and Brazil displayed "a lack of
> flexibility,
> indeed a rigidity" in refusing to lower farm and
> industrial tariffs
> in a way that could benefit not just the West but
> other poor countries.
>
> "There are some folks who may want to portray this
> as a north-south
> breakdown," Ms. Schwab said. "I think nothing could
> be further from
> the truth."
>
> In an interview Friday, after returning from
> meetings with nearly 40
> envoys of African countries in Ghana, Ms. Schwab
> said that while
> South Africa was backing the position of India and
> Brazil, the other
> African countries were in desperate need of a trade
> deal. The onus,
> she said, was on the richer developing countries to
> make it happen.
>
> "The Doha round is a development round, but that
> means something
> different than it would have meant 15 years ago,"
> she said. "It means
> that obviously the developed countries need to do
> the most. But the
> most rapidly growing developing countries need to do
> the next most
> because of the benefits they derived from an open
> trading system."
>
> But the Indian trade minister, Kamal Nath, has stood
> firm, suggesting
> that the United States and Europe were intransigent
> in keeping farm
> subsidies and other trade barriers high, hurting the
> world's poor.
> India charges that American farm subsidies
> especially keep American
> farm products artificially competitive against
> imports.
>
> Though Mr. Nath maintained that trade talks were
> still mired in a
> conflict between rich and poor countries, recent
> developments suggest
> that a cleavage has indeed opened up among
> developing countries, with
> some emerging economies not wanting China, India and
> Brazil to speak
> for them.
>
> India and Brazil, for instance, call for phased-in
> reductions of
> tariffs on manufactured goods that would leave the
> highest tariffs at
> roughly 30 percent, though there were hints they
> could live with a
> level of 25 percent.
>
> The United States and Europe, which would reduce
> their own industrial
> tariffs to a few percentage points, say that India
> and Brazil have
> taken a hard line because of a fear of imports from
> China and other
> export-driven economies. India fears more
> specifically that its auto
>
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