Yep, that’s about it.
I’m trying to figure out how the draft resolution was formulated, despite common knowledge that the G-22 (group of developing countries) is vehemently opposed to what has been proposed.
Also, what are the Singapore Issues?
I would’ve posted in GQ, but this will probably turn into a debate sooner rather than later, so here it is.
The African countries were the ones who actually walked out, but the main negotiations have been thrown a little by the emergence of a genuine new “contender”: A tag team comprising Brazil, China and India.
Essentially, the G22 want US, EU and Russian markets to be as free as their own. This requires the US, EU and Russia to drastically reduce subsidies and end tarriffs and protectionism (which are surely bad things, eh conservatives?).
We offered them aid and debt relief if they opened their markets. They did. Then we refused to open ours, choking their exports and dumping cheap produce in theirs, sending prices through the floor. Finally their fighting together. Don’t be surprised if they start fighting dirty (“Intellectual Property? What a quaint idea!”).
Conservatives? I don’t know the situation in the UK but it’s not conservatives pushing protectionism in the US. Well, it is, but it’s not just them. Any senator from a rural state (the Dakotas, Iowa, Nebraska, etc.) or representative from a rural area whether otherwise liberal or conservative will oppose reductions in farm subsidies here. Which is why it will not happen for a long time here in the US, and any trade agreement that calls for this will be killed in the Senate for precisely this reason.
Otherwise, your analysis is pretty much correct. IMO.
Aye, Roti, I appreciate that. I was merely making the point that this issue of subsidies and protectionism exposes the rank hypocrisy of some US Senators and Congressman better than perhaps any other. Conservatives are supposed to hate handouts and government interference with the economy, yet when they are on the receiving end, political ideology can be conveniently forgotten.
(I also know full well that many liberals advocate a “liberalisation” of the economy yet support subsidies, but they are not so vocal in their ideological opposition to handouts and so I find their hypocrisy less jarring.)
Speaking of rank hypocrisy, I wonder if you would support truely leveling the global-trade playing field, and eliminating all foreign aid we provide to these so-called ‘developing nations’? This include food aid, which would be a bit ironic, all things considered.
Why “so-called”?
Brutus, aid is nothing to do with a “level playing field” in the same way that outward investment or voluntary charity could in no way be described as “unfair trade regulations”.
We are talking about a draft proposal by the WorldTrade Organisation. Aid is a different debate altogether, and I will not make a grab at the red herring you are dangling so clumsily.
If your argument is “let 'em obey the unequal rules we make up or we’ll scrap their aid” then your compassion would again be shining through with the usual supernoval brilliance.
Actually, several representatives from the third world have stated that if getting farm subsidies and tariffs barriers removed from first world countries, they would happily trade that for the loss of foreign aid.
In other words, if losing the aid is the price of having the barriers and subsidies removed, they’ll pay it.
Just because trade is handled through one venue, and aid through another, does not mean that the two are unrelated.
Sending them aid (in effect, doing their subsidization for them), while at the same time lowering any protectionist policies we may have stinks of that sensless rot known as ‘fair trade’. It certainly wouldn’t be ‘free trade’. Since you started babbling about ‘compassion’, I assume that you are a proponent of ‘fair trade’.
Yup, farming subsidies in developed nations do more harm to other countries than any help we give them. They should be banned. As a distortion of the free market they hurt everybody.
The smell may be that red herring.
I advocate an end to subsidies, tariffs and protectionism in order that all countries can compete fairly. If this is not the ‘fair trade’ of which you speak then I have little interest in pursuing a debate based on your personal definitions.
Aid will never be associated with trade, IMO. My reasoning being, providing aid (monetary, food, etc.) gives the provider significant political leverage with the providee. Stopping the flow of aid will open the door to other nations, mainly India and China, to step in and gain that very leverage. No way do I see any developed nation letting go of it. So no, aid will will not be linked to trade. At least not in the way Brutus propounds.
Also, I don’t think any nation is saying ‘free trade’. All the G22 is asking is for the balance to be less skewered in favour of developed nations. It becomes all the more important for this round of the talks because agriculture is the economic backbone of most of the G22 nations, and opening up that particular market will potentially cause immense havoc in those said economies.
gouda, those countries already have opened up and havoc did indeed occur. The US in particular is guilty of dumping millions of tons of subsidised grain onto the African market, thus pushing prices through the floor and crushing the African export market. (Citation.)
The reason for the walkout was that these countries kept their word and opened their markets while the proposed dismantling of US, EU and Russian barriers is piffling by comparison.
So far it’s been mainly the African nations, and a few South East Asian ones. Going by the precedent already set there, how on earth do developed nations justify their current demands?!
I see from this morning’s papers that the Cancun talks have indeed failed. Which might be a god thing for now, but I imagine that several countries might now resort to bilateral agreements regarding trade. Would that be a good thing?