WTO talks collapse

[G_j]

North-south split leads to collapse of WTO talks
http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/international.cfm?id=1019762003

<snip>
Luis Ernesto Dervez, the meeting's chairman, tried to break the deadlock on Saturday with a draft proposal aimed at giving all sides something with which to go home happy yesterday, the last of five days of talks.

However, the proposal was widely criticised. Poor and developing nations said it was far too soft in pushing the United States, the European Union and other rich countries to slash the $300 billion in subsidies they hand out to their farmers every year.

Arun Jaitley, India's commerce minister, led the condemnation, saying the draft "arbitrarily disregarded views and concerns expressed by us" and "does not lend itself to any meaningful dialogue".
The EU also found much to complain about, saying a call for an elimination of farm subsidies at some point in the future was unacceptable.
<snip>

[Maple]

1. The next WTO meeting

is in Hong Kong.

Hopefully by then, the fact that 2/3 of the WTO is made up of developing countries, and that they want an end to agricultural subsidies by the few rich countries in the organization, will have penetrated even the densest govts.

[G_j]

2. & the blame game begins

but once again they are batting zero.

[Maple]

3. It's not a game

it's very serious...and the developing countries want an end to this nonsense of ag subsidies.

And since they're the majority....

[G_j]

5. just a figure of speech of course

It's deadly serious business.

[Resistance Is Futile]

9. Majorities are meaningless

The US and its tributary states will walk out (again) before accepting cuts to corporate welfare aimed at agribusiness. ADM et el wield too much money (power) for any other outcome.

The EU will probably come on-side with the rest of the planet when EU expansion and/or the greying population causes them to run out of money for the CAP.

[Maple]

10. LOL

Yeah right.

[Resistance Is Futile]

15. Agribusiness corporate welfare

Do you really think the US will negotiate further WTO rounds if it means depriving the ruling party of the millions of dollars in kickbacks (campaign contributions) they recieve in exchange for the billions of dollars in public money that are handed out to US-based agribusiness?


Just what are you smoking?

[Maple]

16. Oh enough with the

ideology already.

We're talking about serious things here.

[Resistance Is Futile]

19. Answer the question

Enough with the evasions.

Do you really believe that the US will stick with any future negotiations if the price is going against one of the most powerful interest groups in the American polity?

Going against the ag lobby to keep the WTO on track would be like repealing the 2nd ammendment in exchange for UN support in Iraq. It's just not going to happen.

[Maple]

20. Your name sums you up

and all you've done on these threads is preach...no hope. Resistance is futile.

However all you're actually doing is promoting an outdated leftist ideology that no one is interested in anymore.

If the US doesn't get with the program, it's just one more treaty/deal/agreement they've broken then isn't it.

It's becoming a habit in fact.

The US helped set up the WTO after WWII...guess even it's own ideas aren't good enough for it anymore.

So if they go...they go.

However, I doubt it...the US has too much to gain by staying with it.

They just tend to dawdle, and push for a better deal for themselves.

[el_gato]

37. Maple doesn't want to address the issue here

[Tinoire]

39. The US has a lot to gain by its wars. I'm sure you wouldn't support those

US/Canadian/EU enrichment at the expense of the rest of the world is wrong. A great example was the Chiquita banana scandal and fight with Europe because they weren't willing to rob the poorer nations quite as blindly. You just got to love all the trade wars this is engendering as the US tries to bully its ways into exploiting everyone's markets.

That's why it's called Free I guess... Free for the US' taking.

It hasn't done much for our workers either. Thank God the working class is paying attention and saying NO.
------------------------


((Excerpt)
Destroying North American Manufacturing

The drag on real wages created by the current trading system is bad enough. Worse yet, the addiction to cheap labor that the WTO nourishes in multinational companies is rapidly deindustrializing America.

Companies routinely move production to countries with cheaper labor, and drive down wage patterns in the U.S. and Canada by using the cheaper wages abroad to leverage contract concessions in negotiations with unions. These tactics pit worker against worker from one country to the next in a perpetual cycle of beggar thy neighbor. In numerous cases, production is moved out even after sizeable concessions have been extracted.

Since 1980, the U.S. manufacturing's share of total private sector employment has plummeted by 60%! Some 2.5 million workers have had to find other jobs, usually at much lower pay than the family-supportive wages they enjoyed in manufacturing. For example, the median hourly wages for male high school graduates dropped 22% from 1973 to 1997. And whole communities have been destroyed, both economically and socially.

Today, the devastation continues, much less obviously than the collapse of steel mill towns and cities during the Eighties - all the more insidious by virtue of being nearly invisible. Over the past 16 months, more than 500,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs have been lost, and the number is expected to rise as high as 700,000 by year's end.


http://www.fixitornixit.com/uswaposition.htm

[fabius]

4. Great!

The poor countries are going to cancel WTO by themselves. Good move! Seriously.

If they get the hell out of it they can make their own drugs at cost and save millions of lives. 'Course my wife will have to sell her Pfizer stock. That's OK.

[Maple]

6. No one is getting 'out'

The WTO didn't disappear. They failed to reach an agreement because the majority got tired of listening to excuses from the minority about ag subsidies.

[G_j]

7. right

in the mean time the small farmers will continue to go under and starve.

[Maple]

8. I agree

this is a disaster for the farmers in developing countries. It isn't the way I'd have chosen to do it, but I assume they were annoyed enough to overuse their clout.

Trouble is, walking away from a situation, however dramatic, doesn't solve the problem.

[G_j]

11. listening to BBC right now

someone is stating, "better no deal, than a bad deal"

The US and EU picked up their toys and refused to play any more..

[Maple]

12. The person you're quoting

is Joseph Stiglitz

The US and EU didn't end it...the developing countries did.

They insisted that the ag question be dealt with first...the US and EU insisted on their investment agenda first.

The other countries refused.

[G_j]

17. it wasn't him

but he is very good, a former WB bigwig who saw the light.
Yes I guess the the US and EU didn't actually pull out, but they weren't really 'playing'.

[Maple]

18. Well he was quoted as saying that

and as to 'seeing the light'....that's questionable.

He is promoting the idea of eliminating subsidies. Most people agree with that.

It's only the politicians who are worried about farm votes that disagree....even tho farmers are now a tiny percentage of the population.

It's a leftover reflex action from our agricultural era.

[fabius]

33. US-EU "Investment Agenda" - Be suspicious,

Be very suspicious.

This investment agenda is run by people that have morals like Kenny Boy and Dick Cheney.

[nolabels]

13. The old farmers use to say "never buy a pig in poke' or something.......

like that. Things could turn more favorable to many in the near future, there is a history of rewarding people that have patience in their dealings. I would be willing to stick my neck out for them farmers, and besides with out them we don't eat.

[Maple]

14. It depends on which farmers

you're supporting.

Western farmers with their big subsidies....or the farmers in developing nations that are being prevented from selling on world markets.

[nolabels]

21. Big western farmers reached the zenith 10 or 20 year ago

My brother-in-law farms several acres back in Kentucky, their ways of farming are having to go back to the natural and hands on stuff more everyday.

The price for petroleum products that is the mainstay and building block for modern western farming and it is starting to eats its own in many ways. The ever increasing subsidies are just another clue that it’s going backwards.

[Maple]

24. Yes in the western world

factory farms are the only ones big enough to make it anymore.

Family farms have to go 'organic' just to be different and compete on a different level...but that's very labor intensive and can easily disappear.

[G_j]

26. the best thing to happen I think

a step in the right direction.
www.emedia.com.my/Current_News/NST/Sunday/National/20030914084440/Article/
Developing countries unite for stronger position at WTO Ministerial Conference
Hardev Kaur
CANCUN, MEXICO, Sept 14: DEVELOPING countries have come together in

Cancun, Mexico, as never
before in international trade negotiations.
They have formed alliances to safeguard their position, to seek a fairer world trading regime and to counter the demands of developed countries.

Poor countries from across the globe, from Latin America to the Caribbean, from Africa to Asia, have joined forces to speak with one voice at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Ministerial Conference on a number of issues.

The developing countries, which account for the bulk of the WTO membership but find that their views are often not heard by the rich and powerful members, are beginning to demonstrate solidarity in an effort to unify their positions.

One of the alliances is the group of like-minded developing countries which have come together on "New Issues", the other is the Group of 23 which is opposed to the agricultural subsidies of the US, EU and Japan.
...more..

[Maple]

29. If it gives the west a kick in the ass

and lets them know they don't run the world...then yes, it's a good thing.

Globalization is going to be toughest on the US tho.

I think the govt figured everyone would just opt for coke, and running shoes, and movies and be happy about it, and that's all globalization and the 'new world order' would involve.

Surprise!

[Adjoran]

22. The EU is even worse than the US

on agricultural subsidies. All the subsidies must go in order to give the developing nations a chance.

For most developing nations, they have two major sources of income: natural resources, if they happen to have oil or diamonds or something else the rest of the world wants to buy, and agriculture.

We can whine all day and all night about "aid to developing countries," but that is a mere pittance at best, compared to what they could do for themselves if the world's agricultural markets were not fixed.

The US and EU wanted WTO so we could break down the barriers to our products in the rest of the world, but part of the price for that was the promise that our own barriers would come down, too. Ag subsidies are trade barriers. Time to follow through on our promises to the rest of the world.

[Maple]

23. Absolutely

Everybody both gives and gets.

Helps everyone.

[DemBones DemBones]

25. I know you say you "work with" NAFTA, Maple, but just what is it tha

you do and what company or organization do you work for?

[Maple]

27. I work in what's called

'development finance'...not NAFTA by itself, but with trade and trade rules and economic development.

And I don't work for any company/organization/corporation.

[DemBones DemBones]

31. So do you work for a financial institution? Canadian govt.?

Trying to grasp what you do (advise clients? check that trade rules are complied with? predict trends?) and "who" you get paid by. Most of us know very little outside our own employment sphere, you know, except for the usual jobs we come in contact with.

[Maple]

32. I'm a

developmental analyst.

And strictly free lance contract.

Not beholden to anyone.

I calls 'em as I sees 'em.

What you'd call a consultant I suppose.

Yes, I predict trends, and yes I advise.

And yes, I'm paid very well.

Whether they like what I predict/advise/promote or not.

[G_j]

28. fingers pointing at the "bully boys"

Europe, US Are Bully Boys of World Trade,

www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/bwi-wto/wto/2003/0909bullyboys.htm -

Developing countries should not be fooled by the European Union's (EU) "development-friendly" rhetoric, which generally compares favorably to the more aggressive positions taken by the United States in international trade negotiations, according to a new report by researchers associated with several non-governmental organizations released Tuesday, on the eve of this week's World Trade Organization's (WTO) ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico. In fact, just like Washington, the EU frequently resorts to "inappropriate tactics"--from outright bullying to excluding delegates from developing countries from participating in key informal meetings--in pursuit of its own commercial interests, according to the new report, entitled The Cunning Bully: EU Bribery and Arm-Twisting at the WTO.

"Rather than supporting the positions of developing countries," according to Steven Kelk, a researcher at Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) in Amsterdam, "the European Union time after time bullies these nations with self-serving power politics aimed at furthering its ambitions. Cancun could well become an arm-twisting and dirty-tricks cess-pit." This week's meeting, which begins Wednesday and is scheduled to run through Sunday, is designed to advance a new round of global trade negotiations in a variety of sectors that was launched in November, 2001, in Doha, Qatar.

While WTO and EU officials have called for the new set of talks to serve as a "development round" focused on the reform of trading rules to benefit poor countries, trade officials from developing nations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that support them are concerned that the industrialized nations in North America and Western Europe will hijack the agenda in pursuit of their own narrow interests, particularly by preserving, for example, certain kinds of farm and other subsidies that make it impossible for farmers in developing countries to compete. At the same time, rich countries are hoping to establish new rules for trade and investment in other sectors that will enable them to dominate markets in poor countries.
..more..

[Maple]

30. Oh yeah

Europe can bully...they just do it with more finesse. :D

[aneerkoinos]

36. LOL

Yep, whatever our values and policies, we can allways be proud of our "finesse"...

What would be really wonderfull is that NGO's ally with small farmers, who would ther drop out from big subsidy farmers interest groups and lobbies. We know it is not only small farmers in poor countries that have been fucked, also our own small and poor farmers have been fucked for decades.

[aneerkoinos]

35. Not all subsidies need to go

All export subsidies, yes, but the EU Commissions new CAP is in principle basically sound - in practice, yeah, not so sound. However, subsidies that go to small farms, allow people to live at the countryside, produce organic food and take care of the enviroment and most importantly, ARE NOT RELATED TO PRODUCTION, are acceptable and necessary to keep countryside inhabited and protect and promote our cultural heritage.

I would hope that if these subsidies can be deviced in a way that don't distort global trade and punish poor farmers in developing countries, the developing countries would allow us this little.

[jsw_81]

34. As a Seattleite, I'm shocked!

:)

[aneerkoinos]

38. Prodi on BBC:

President of EU Commission, Prodi, just said on BBC interview that the real winner in Cancun was G23, acknowledging that they represent more than half of Earths population and 2/3 of farmers. He also seemed to be speaking on the line that EU must re-evaluate it's whole position, but EU is not going to give up on WTO and multilateral trade system. He was also acting very weird, gigling, mumbling and being very incoherent. What'ya smoking, Prodi dude? :D

This sounds very positive indeed. I take it that EU admits defeat of "the usual business" and it was shocked to find out that developing world finally stood up. EU is now facing tremendous pressure not only from G23 but more importantly from inside, from NGO's, Social Forums and ordinary citizens to do the right thing and accept the demands of G23 without the price tag of investment "liberalisation".