WTO failure

It’s easy to shrug off this week’s collapse of global trade talks. But the damage to the world’s poorest countries, which will now be denied their promised access to global markets and a chance to compete, will be enormous. So will be the resentment toward the world’s richest countries. Much of that blame ought to be directed at Europe and the US, which again decided that the political clout of their farm lobbies outweighed their leaders’ promises to end global poverty.

This round of trade talks was supposed to redress decades of unfairness in the global trading system. But they have done little to break down barriers against agricultural goods and textiles, areas in which poor countries can compete. The Americans and Europeans were expected to promise deep cuts in agricultural subsidies. Brazil and India, which claim to be champions of the poorest, didn’t help by refusing to pry open their growing markets.

The developed countries won’t benefit from a further liberalisation of trade in services and manufactured goods. The poor countries won’t get to compete with their agricultural goods. And the world economy may falter. As for the promises made in 2001 to do more to help the world’s poor climb out of poverty, those have been shrugged off.