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There was something unseemly about the way Europe and the U.S. blamed each other for the collapse of global trade talks. Like two bullies standing amid the wreckage of their brawl, they looked a little ridiculous, especially when their squabbling turned so quickly to who was responsible for the breakdown. Almost five years after the launch of the World Trade Organization's Doha round, which set out to boost the developing world's share of global trade, poor countries don't really care which rich country is to blame for the breakdown.
What do they care about? Read the article
here to find out for yourself.
Note: Since the date of this post, the article noted has been moved or taken off the site. We apologize for the inconvenience. As a courtesy, we have added
Quotes of the Day on the same topic and by the same source back in 2006.
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2 comments:
The Time Europe article is an excellent summary of what transpired in the demise of the Doha Development Agenda. Many of the same themes are echoed in a July 26 post on the Going Global blog entitled Protectionism and the Food Chain, but while the Time article in the end lays the blame on agri-business lobbyists, I would argue that the roots go deeper than that -- in part the ability to produce an ample abundance of agricultural products is the one core competency that the devloped countries continue to protect in the event that there is ever a serious breakdown in the global regime.
Hi, Craig,
My apologies for the delayed response here. Too much going on but I did wish to comment on the demise of the Doha Development Agenda. First, I think the G-6 needs to correct its course of action and get the whole thing out of the political prison it's in. Second, we need to offer complete access for the least developed countries to all the wealthy countries so they don't end up with a distribution of only 2% of gains versus supposedly 60% that goes to the rich continents. And last but not least, they all need to get real and start practicing trade without politics.
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