No, “Doha” is not Homer Simpson’s favorite expression.
But Homer’s exasperated “Doh!” is a good expletive for what’s happening with the negotiations called the Doha round of global trade talks.
The latest session of the talks, named after the city in Qatar where they began in 2001, broke off this month, demonstrating again that the world isn’t as flat as some would have you think.
The goal of the Doha talks is to craft new trade rules that would open up agricultural markets in developed nations and manufacturing markets in developing ones.
The talks famously hit a big snag during a 2003 meeting in Cancun, when negotiators couldn’t agree on farm subsidies. Unproductive squabbling continued during subsequent conclaves in Geneva and Paris, but Hong Kong talks in late 2005 provided a glimmer of hope.
The glimmer got fainter after a Geneva meeting that broke up without agreement July 1. Although the details are murky to non-experts, the basic disagreements are over how much the U.S. should reduce farm subsidies, how much European nations should lower barriers to agricultural imports and how much tariffs on manufactured goods should be eased.
The core of the disputes are over the approximately $300 billion of tariffs and subsidies that developed nations use to protect their farmers. Everybody is willing to make some cuts, but nobody thinks the other guys are willing to cut enough.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva hopes to discuss the impasse with G8 leaders meeting in Russia this weekend, and some of the biggest players – the U.S., the European Union, Japan, Brazil, India and China – may meet again at the end of the month.
It’s important that G8 leaders find some time to think about the issue, that trade specialists continue their negotiations and that each group be willing to make more concessions than they already have. Increasing global trade, especially opening doors for developing nations to export more, is vital to breaking the cycle of poverty that decades of direct aid have done little to ease.
There always are winners and losers when trade rules change. In the U.S., some big agricultural companies (not the mythical family farm) may suffer, but consumers could gain. Farm subsidies cost U.S. consumers an estimated $19 billion last year.
But overall, the world has much to gain from freer trade.
