Each Nation for Itself?

THE World Trade Organisation (WTO) published recently a model of decisions trade ministers are enjoined to take at an upcoming meeting in Mexico. It covers 23 categories of the Doha round. This is an ambitious attempt in international cooperation to open up world commerce, launched in the Qatari capital Doha in November 2001. The deadline for its completion is set at Jan 1, 2005. In 17 months, the world's querulous trading nations are supposed to agree on rules that will permit one another open access to merchandise and services, free of noxious non-tariff barriers. These can come in the guise of American anti-dumping rules, used often in the steel trade, or creative Japanese ways of keeping out foreign-made goods. On one occasion, a bid was made to blackball recreational skis because these did not take to Japanese snow! With the best will in the world, and taking into account the tortured history of the Uruguay round in a previous incarnation, the Doha round is at most a case of 'good if you can get it'. This is not fashionable cynicism. None of the 23 categories in the WTO model has been agreed on by the organisation's 146 member nations, which was why it took care to say the text was issued 'without prejudice to any delegation's position on any issue'. This is putting it politely.

Oxfam, the international relief organisation, says the draft 'is a barometer for judging the state of world trade talks and it's falling fast... unless the rich countries make some concessions to developing countries, and quickly'. In a separate opinion written for the British newspaper The Guardian, Oxfam's head of research Kevin Watkins wrote that the WTO 'has done little more than advance Western corporate interests, tolerate northern protectionism and rubber-stamp agricultural dumping'. The Doha round's rate of progress - or obstructionism, to be precise - supports Oxfam-like views which are fairly uniform outside of the United States-Europe-Japan privileged club. In agriculture, the US has increased farm support subsidies while demanding that developing agrarian economies open their markets. The European Union's recent reform of its agricultural subsidy programme has been roundly condemned as numerical sleight-of-hand. If the Cairns Group of quite influential agricultural exporters can make no headway against this formidable hurdle, what chance African growers? Another objective on the WTO list is a decision on access to medicines for poor nations which do not manufacture their own. The US has not budged from its position that any deal should not cover non-infectious conditions such as asthma and obesity. Shades of snow skis here. The belief that rich northern-hemisphere countries pander to corporate interests is looking like a self-evident truth.

The real defining issue in trade talks is whether the WTO is yesterday's game, as more countries are placing their bets on bilateral and regional trade agreements. The WTO's new chief, Dr Supachai Panitchpakdi, is fearful their proliferation could make multilateralism irrelevant. There are now some 270 agreements signed and he expects the number to rise to 300 within two years. It would not escape notice that the richest nations outside of the EU are active in negotiating regional and direct deals, as much as middle-income nations. The trade ministers meeting in the Mexican resort of Cancun from Sept 10 to 14 have an unenviable task: Plod along knowing the multilateral track is fast losing steam, or keep stalling and initiate an era of little trade wars.