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New WTO Talks Too Ambitious
November 23, 2001
Summary
Ministers from 142 countries converged on Doha, Qatar, last week to discuss the next major step in the world's trading system. In the eleventh hour, the diplomats managed to cobble together a rough agreement to launch a new round of talks on global trade. But their real work is only now beginning, and flaws in the agreement and the speed at which they must proceed makes large-scale success doubtful.
Analysis
Diplomats at the World Trade Organization in Qatar hammered out on Nov. 14 the final details for launching a new round of talks on trade liberalization. WTO ministers are counting on the "Doha Round" of negotiations, which are set to begin in January and aimed at lowering trade barriers worldwide, to result in a new deal by 2005.
Last week's agreement gave governments the world over a much-needed show of solidarity in the aftermath of Sept. 11. But the haste in which the agreement was formed and the short time frame for finalizing a trade deal ensure that the next round of talks will be deeply flawed. Trade progress will be damaged once the states' desire to show political unity gives way to concerns about their own best interests.
Both participants and the media have trumpeted the Doha agreement as a major success, and in some ways it is. Normally trade-negotiation issues are hashed out months before the actual meetings. Failure to do so at the 1999 WTO meeting in Seattle was the real reason for the collapse of those talks, not cappuccino-guzzling protesters. At Doha even the agenda wasn't finalized until hours before the first diplomats arrived.
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(c) 2001 Stratfor, Inc.
Dan
New WTO Talks Too Ambitious . . .