WTO makes progress in cutting farm subsidies

[Urban Ranger]

GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Trade Organization, its credibility restored now its Doha Round is back on track, still faces a huge task to deliver on promises of freer global trade, officials admitted Sunday.

A last-ditch deal between the WTO's 147 members, setting out key guidelines for more work, prevented a potentially fatal failure for the round with its offer of deep cuts in rich power farm subsidies and more open markets to boost world growth.

"The multilateral trading system is alive after a period of doubt," said European Union Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy, whose pledge to eliminate the bloc's hugely controversial farm export subsidies helped pave the way to the pact.

The Doha Round, launched in late 2001 with the world still reeling from the suicide plane attacks in the United States, aims to lower barriers to commerce across the global economy.

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I am surprised that there doesn't seem to be a thread on this. This is good news, at least on paper.

[DinoDoc]

The PRC won't like you talking out of school seeing as how they aren't too keen on the deal, UR. Anyway I'll start caring when they get down to specifics rather than ambiguities.

[DinoDoc]

BTW, is there any ETA on when the WTO will start hammering out the details of the deal?

[The El]

Urban Ranger,

If the negotiating member-states can pull it off, this will be great news for the developing world and their fragile export economies. Nothing worse than not having any money, wanting to support your own country by buying domestic goods, but seeing American or European agricultural products priced cheaper and having to play a part of the problem that your country faces in the first place. I read about this yesterday and smiled.

Plainly,

El

P.S. - Is this thread just being overlooked or do you people genuinely not care?

[Dinner]

If they follow their past examples there will be a flowery treaty where everyone agrees that eliminating subsidies is great in theory but where no one actually commits to cutting subsidies.

[Dinner]

Is this thread just being overlooked or do you people genuinely not care?

This is an often talked about topic and I suspect posters are running into a bit of topic fatigue.

[Hueij]

P.S. - Is this thread just being overlooked or do you people genuinely not care?

It'll probably end up with us Eurocoms blaming the US and vv.

When I was in a supermarket in Kingston (Jamaica ) I noticed that products from the US where a lot cheaper than the same products made in Ja....

[Ramo]

Good news, but we'll see if the member states will be able to get this through their legislatures. I have serious doubts about this passing over here, considering that this is an election year.

[Last Conformist]

I'll celebrate when I see some actual slashings of barriers and subsidies.

[The El]

Hueij,

It's all part of the process.

A lot of people make the mistake and believe that the governments of these developing countries also subsidize their farmers and that the competition is therefore fair. But that's wrong. When countries in Latin America or the Caribbean borrow from organizations such as the IMF, they have to abide by those counterproductive structural adjustment procedures (SAPs), some of which include lowering tariffs on imports and not subsidizing your own country's agriculture industry. So, from the very start, the loan is made under certain conditions that don't allow these infant industries to grow.

Albert and I had this discussion before. Say, Jamaica borrows from the IMF. The money would actually be of good use if Jamaica was allowed to raise its tariffs for a specified period of time, then lowering them to allow competitive trade. They would then, at least, have time to build up their domestic agriculture industry. But this isn't allowed. Forget that we here in the United States use the same reasoning when we raise tariffs to protect our infant industries. They're not us.

Overall, people think the borrowing helps but it doesn't. It just creates an endless cycle of borrowing. You have to borrow to pay the loan back! Then you have to borrow to pay that loan back! And it goes on and on and never stops.

I'm not anti-IMF, by the way. However, some of its SAPs need to be done away with to level the playing field. Only then will trade between the developed world and the developing world be fair.

Respectfully,

El

[Hueij]

The El, you are praying to the converted here (is that an English expression also?). I totally agree with on this one.

BTW, totally off-topic, since you seem to know Speer, can't you make him change his nick into something less offensive?

[JohnT]

The english translation is "preaching to the converted."

[Hueij]

Originally posted by JohnT
The english translation is "preaching to the converted."

Doh... I meant preaching

[Whoha]

Preaching to the Choir?

[Chemical Ollie]

On one hand, I fully support the removal of trade restrictions and government subsidies.

On the other hand this may have the effect that people starve in Africa because all good crops are exported to get foreign capital(Irish Potato Famine revisited), while farmers in Europe and US have to shut down operations due to low profitability. The end result could be that global food production is lower than the demand.

I don't know what to think.