Posted on: Tuesday, September 16, 2003

EDITORIAL
Globalization must benefit poor nations

It's not all that surprising that the World Trade Organization's summit meeting in Cancun, Mexico, has collapsed. After all, it has failed to meet any of the deadlines set at the launch of the latest trade round in Doha, Qatar, two years ago.

What is surprising is that the collapse didn't directly involve the inflamatory issue of the $300 billion in agricultural subsidies that rich nations use to keep poor nations from improving their own now dismal prospects with agricultural exports.

Rather it was rules first proposed in Singapore in 1996 that provided the rocks upon which the summit foundered. These involve expanding the WTO rule book to embrace such relatively arcane issues as foreign investment, competition policy, government procurement and things like customs clearance.

Poor countries don't want to take on these obligations because they are costly to implement and monitor. It's also hard to understand why rich countries want them. The United States, for example, is not anxious to have the antitrust decisions of its judges overruled by bureaucrats in the WTO's Geneva headquarters.

It's possible that the Singapore issues were just a smoke screen thrown up by the European Union and Japan, who preferred to see the Cancun summit collapse rather than be shamed into giving up their own ag subsidies.

They had recognized the power of a new coalition of developing countries — the G22, if you will — which is resolved to defeat such red-flag irritants as Japan's import tariffs on rice, which can reach 1,000 percent. But they also point out that poor countries have as much to gain from lowering their own barriers with each other as they do from overcoming those of rich countries.

The failure of the talks makes it nearly impossible for the WTO to reach its main goal: a new global trade treaty by the end of next year. U.S. officials argued the treaty would have jump-started a sluggish world economy. But developing countries said they were tired of bullying by the rich, and want a deal that will help even the poorest among them.

What many of us are slow to realize is that globalization is already upon us. The pity is that the Cancun summit missed another opportunity to broaden its benefits more equitably.