A Realist's View of the Global Trading System
There is great lamentation these days about the state of the multilateral trading system and its institutional symbol, the World Trade Organization (WTO). The Doha Round of multilateral negotiations has now dragged on for twelve years, with no end in sight on major issues. From 2003, when the first breakdown came at Cancun, Mexico, through a further standoff in Hong Kong in 2005, and a huge negotiating defeat after a marathon 2008 session in Geneva, world leaders have executed a political ritual: frantic calls for the "political will" to successfully conclude the round, followed by a total absence of action. Indeed, the greatest damage inflicted on the WTO has come from these feckless and increasingly vitiating global calls for action.
Now, attention is focused on salvaging a "mini" outcome when WTO trade ministers meet in Bali in December. But even this token outcome seems in jeopardy. In a stinging, blunt assessment of the prospects for even minimal success, U.S. WTO Ambassador Michael Punke recently stated that "the picture is grim." In Punke's view (echoed in part by WTO Director General Pascal Lamy), WTO trade negotiators, rather than converging on vital compromises, are moving farther apart on key areas-trade facilitation (customs reform, removal of transportation and regulatory blocks to moving goods and services) minor agricultural trade reforms, and granting free trade access to the least developed nations.
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