OP Rana

Developed countries 'kill' Doha Round

By Op Rana (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-05-28 07:58

The Doha Round of talks is supposed to correct the World Trade Organization (WTO) rules that are biased against developing countries - At least, that's what the original idea was.

But after almost a decade, the talks have gone nowhere. And the blame for that has to be placed on developed countries. It's not that the developed countries have had a joint stand on the issues at stake. As things have unfolded, even the United States seems to be confused - not about what it wants from the Doha Round - but about the negotiations themselves.

Take US Trade Representative Ron Kirk for example. He told the Associated Press on Thursday that it's too soon to declare the Doha Round "a failure". A Reuters report on the same day quoted Kirk as saying that setting deadlines for progress in the Doha Round of global free-trade talks "was unhelpful".

The message is: The world should try to make the Doha Round a success.

Perhaps that's what the US wants the rest of the world to believe and do. But, for its own benefit, it has another plan. Exactly a week before the AP and Reuters reports, Kirk said, "it is time to look beyond the troubled Doha Round on a global pact", and that nations should seek more limited goals for now. Though he stopped short of declaring the death of the WTO talks, he conceded that a restated commitment to the Doha Round would sound "increasingly hollow". The remarks were made at the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Big Sky, Montana.

The Doha Round has been caught in a quagmire because the rich countries have refused to concede even an inch of space to the developing countries.

For almost a decade, the talks have focused on forcing the developing countries to open their markets further, while the advanced economies continue to carry on business as usual - subsidizing their agriculture and other sectors, setting market rules that suit their needs, and squeezing the last drops of profits from even the poorest countries.

So adamant and unjustifiable has been the US in protecting its farm sector that even the European Union has asked it to reduce governmental support for agriculture more generously. But the US insists that the developing countries - and the EU - should reduce their tariffs more substantially and limit the number of import-sensitive and special products exempt from cuts. For developed economies like the EU, import-sensitive products are of the greatest concern, whereas developing nations are sensitive to special products - which are exempt from tariff reduction and subsidy cuts owing to reasons of development, food security and/or livelihood.

And it seems that the US has succeeded in its designs. A report issued after a WTO meeting in April allowed developed countries to continue giving high subsidies to their agriculture sectors, albeit with a change in terms and language. According to the report, rich countries will also be able to shield their "sensitive products" from drastic tariff cuts.

And what will the developing countries get. Nothing! Instead, they stand to lose a great deal. They will have to reduce their agriculture tariff further. They will also have to cut the tariff on industrial products drastically. And the worst sufferers will be countries like China, India and Brazil.

Yet the developed world says it wants the Doha Round to "succeed". They should know by now, though, that the arm-twisting methods they have employed to "straighten things out" in the WTO, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund will no longer succeed.

That was the message that emerged from the WTO trade ministers' meeting in Paris on Thursday. China's Vice-Minister of Commerce, Yu Jianhua, made it clear that China will continue playing a "constructive and positive" role in taking the stalled Doha Round forward.

"We have cut our tariffs by 70 percent and according to what is on the table in the Doha Round, China will cut tariffs by another 30 percent," Yu said at the APEC forum in Montana.

The Doha Round has reached a critical moment, he said, because of the domestic politics of certain economies, the global financial crisis and the protectionism resorted to by some economies.

Until those "certain (rich) economies" show signs of honesty, the Doha Round for all intents and purposes is dead.

The author is a senior copy editor with China Daily. E-mail: oprana@hotmail.com