Comments on: No Doha For You! http://www.redstate.com/pejman_yousefzadeh/2008/12/14/no-doha-for-you/ Thu, 14 May 2009 16:10:42 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Pejman Yousefzadeh http://www.redstate.com/pejman_yousefzadeh/2008/12/14/no-doha-for-you/#comment-3326 Pejman Yousefzadeh Sun, 14 Dec 2008 19:48:13 +0000 http://www.redstate.com/pejman_yousefzadeh/?p=726#comment-3326 Which is why I called for the phasing out of agricultural subsidies over a five year period <a href="http://www.american.com/archive/2006/december/return-of-the-cowboy/" rel="nofollow">two years ago</a>. Which is why I called for the phasing out of agricultural subsidies over a five year period two years ago.

]]> By: govprof http://www.redstate.com/pejman_yousefzadeh/2008/12/14/no-doha-for-you/#comment-3311 govprof Sun, 14 Dec 2008 15:13:56 +0000 http://www.redstate.com/pejman_yousefzadeh/?p=726#comment-3311 Pejman, I'm glad you're bringing up Doha, because it provides deep insight into the politics of trade bargaining. A few points, though: 1. I doubt that the collapse of round will lead to growing protectionism. The demands being made by the United States are just that - demands. Unless bargained over and officially made into trade law, they won't threaten world trade. And that's the point of the WTO. It serves to limit countries' ability to erect protections when times get hard. In fact, one of the outgrowths of the collapse of Doha has been a growth in regional trade agreements, rather than new protections. 2. If you really want to understand why the round fell apart, it's not our industrial demands. It's American agriculture. Our farm subsidies and other protections seem to be politically untouchable. They have a huge lobby (e.g., sugar) that is very hard to beat. If we would lower our agricultural subsidies, the whole round would be solved. 3. The other problem with Doha is the structure of the WTO. Its basic rule is that "nothing is agreed until everything is agreed." In the Doha Round, 18 of 20 articles were agreed on. The other WTO-related problem is the number of countries. There are, I think, 153 countries involved in this round. The more players, the more difficult it gets to form an agreement, especially given the rule that everyone needs to agree. Pejman, I’m glad you’re bringing up Doha, because it provides deep insight into the politics of trade bargaining. A few points, though:

1. I doubt that the collapse of round will lead to growing protectionism. The demands being made by the United States are just that – demands. Unless bargained over and officially made into trade law, they won’t threaten world trade. And that’s the point of the WTO. It serves to limit countries’ ability to erect protections when times get hard. In fact, one of the outgrowths of the collapse of Doha has been a growth in regional trade agreements, rather than new protections.

2. If you really want to understand why the round fell apart, it’s not our industrial demands. It’s American agriculture. Our farm subsidies and other protections seem to be politically untouchable. They have a huge lobby (e.g., sugar) that is very hard to beat. If we would lower our agricultural subsidies, the whole round would be solved.

3. The other problem with Doha is the structure of the WTO. Its basic rule is that “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.” In the Doha Round, 18 of 20 articles were agreed on. The other WTO-related problem is the number of countries. There are, I think, 153 countries involved in this round. The more players, the more difficult it gets to form an agreement, especially given the rule that everyone needs to agree.

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