Doha Rounds the Decade Long

Doha Rounds

The Decade Long Doha Round Negotiations

The World Trade Organization was formed in 1995 as part of a post-cold war experiment in trade liberalization and an extension of the principles of the United States; those principles being removing all existing borders between all nations in a regulated international institution environment. Before the WTO formed, the world's trade barriers were split between the Western Powers, the Communist Bloc, and the non-aligned nations, which had independent trade policies, based on their own individual trade practices. Bringing all nations' trade policies under regulation by one organization has had an incredible effect on world trade in the past 17 years, creating a globalization phenomenon that has expanded corporate influence around the world.

The WTO Doha rounds negotiation began in November 2001, were an extension of these policies into vital sectors such as agriculture and livestock. The intention of the Doha Development Round was to allow poorer nations with few industrial goods to be able to sell their foodstuff in more industrialized nations at an equal price, boosting development.

This has not gone as planned, however, and more than a decade later the Doha Development Rounds have continued pressing for the reduction of agricultural trade barriers worldwide.

The United States has been the biggest blocker of Doha's recommendations, due to the long history of American farm subsidies that are seen as critical to American national interests. The timing of the opening of the Doha Rounds, just months after the September 11th, 2001 attacks, was a significant factor in the United States dragging its feet on the issue.

The idea that a nation should be protecting its own agricultural industry from foreign intervention is based on the idea that imported food could be poisoned or low quality, which could be considered a format for terrorists to tamper with American food supplies. Also, American farms are mostly under the control of corporate interests, with the idea of the lonely farming family mostly a modern myth of a bygone era. As corporations are notoriously competitive and monopolistic, they do not want to compete in the American marketplace against foreign farmers. They are happy to export as much of their own product as possible, however. The issue of American farm subsidies has vexed the European Union, which has taken the American lead since WWII in opening up the various borders of the various nations of Europe.

The issue of agriculture, however, has yet to be settled.

There has not been any significant budging in the American trade policies towards farm subsidies since President Obama took office in 2009, as many had hoped, and therefore there does not seem to be any immediate change of course for America on this tricky issue.

The United States has been approached by three separate constituencies in their opposition to measures included in the Doha Rounds. First, the European Union, and specifically the United Kingdom, has attempted to charm the United States on this issue, as they see the opening of American markets as an extremely important future resource for economic growth and integration. The European Union, however, has not taken any serious attempts to convince the Americans to change their minds, unlike Brazil. President Lula of Brazil has been extremely forceful in his approach to Washington, even applying trade tariffs to over 100 American goods sold in Brazil.

The idea of Lula's was to force the hand of America in order to reach a conclusion to the Doha Round talks. This strategy backfired, however, as the United States subsequently passed an agricultural subsidy bill that would last for 5 years and was larger than any farming subsidy than has been passed in history.

Brazil has an enormous cattle population and would love to sell Brazilian beef in the States, and also Brazil has massive Sugar and Soy farms. If trade borders for these goods were opened between the U.S. And Brazil, Brazil would see immediate benefits to their rural population, that still is controlled by small farming communities.

India is the largest and most pressing concern for American and European hesitations about completely opening their agricultural sectors to foreign produce and livestock.

India, along with more than 100 small countries that have aligned themselves with India's position, has stated that the rich countries of the world are simply protecting their own interests rather than opening up to the development of the poor countries of the world. If these agricultural markets were to open to the poor countries of the world, massive development would take place and farming techniques would reinvent the landscape of countries ranging from small islands such as Jamaica and Haiti, to large landmass countries such as Russia and India. The implications of what India is asking for would mean a complete reworking of how humanity eats and sources its food, a change that is radical in its scope and importance. The United States is afraid that opening these trade barriers would mean that agriculturally wealthy nations could then restrict the movement of food based on political concerns.

The most extreme examples of this would be to literally starve nations that had given up their domestic farming in exchange for food security from their neighbors, and America has used this line of thinking to great effect in creating cloudiness around the entire Doha Round Negotiations.

Another area of interest to the Doha Development Round is the problem of patented medicine.

The creation of new medicines involves millions, possibly even billions of dollars of investment, and therefore the high price of these new medical techniques is an attempt to recoup the losses incurred by the private medical firms that have developed new drugs, the largest of which being Pfizer.

Poor nations see these drugs as extremely important to helping their populations with immediate medical concerns ranging from AIDS to Cancer, but they know that their poor population could never afford the high prices attached to these drugs. Unlike agriculture, however, the Doha Rounds have been successful in this trade barrier deregulation on August 30, 2003. Now there is compulsory licensing to less-developed nations in order to best provide pharmaceuticals to those in need but without the means to pay for developed world prices. This means that $50,000 cancer drugs sold in the United States can be had in places like India for $5. The disparity is incredible in this regard, but has so far worked adequately enough to not require further changes to this aspect of Doha.

The Doha Development Rounds have been found by a University of Michigan team to be the greatest form of global welfare, with just a 33% reduction in tariffs, over $570 billion would be better distributed to the world's poor in an effective manner.

This form of global welfare is based on state to state interaction, and not similar to the welfare of state to citizen, and thus it can be seen as more of an investment rather than an hindrance. The welfare described by WTO will actually create new markets not only for the poor nations of the world, by also for the European Union and the United States as well. The Copenhagen Consensus, which is a group that looks for ways to help the people of the world solve unsolvable problems, has seen the Doha Development Rounds as the second-best investment for global welfare, after the provision of vitamin supplements to the world's 140 million malnourished children.

If xenophobia after the September 11th attacks can be overcome and the Doha Development Rounds continue to a positive conclusion, then it would seem as if the world may become a much better place to live, and the possibilities of global growth will continue to thrive for the duration of the 21st century.

In conclusion, the Doha Development Rounds have not continued in earnest since 2008, and despite further calls for a resumption of talks, no timeline has been set for future negotiations. The global recession created urgency in governments around the world concerning the continuation of normal financial services, superseding the relatively high-minded discussions of trade regulation. David Cameron of the United Kingdom has broken from his country's prior emphasis on Doha Rounds in trying to pass an incomplete bill as soon as possible on issues that are agreed upon, in an effort to simply end the ongoing struggle of the Doha Rounds. There is no agreed upon solution to this problem, and therefore negotiators have to wait for the political leaders of the world to take another look at agricultural subsidies and the implications of the Doha Round Discussions for their own countries best interests.

WORKS CITED: (in order of citation)

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