Do the right thing

The World Trade Organisation has a self-imposed deadline - the end of this month - to agree to the draft framework for negotiations mandated by the launch of the Doha development round. This should have been decided by the Cancun ministerial meeting in Mexico last year. That failure has cost the negotiations at least a year, maybe two. The round cannot possibly conclude this year, as had been planned.

But it will not fail; no trade round has ever failed, they just take too long. However, this time it is different. Multilateralism is giving way to regional and bilateral deals. Trade ministers will not sit still if negotiators in Geneva cannot make progress. It would be a tragedy for all if the talks remain stalled and we lose another three or four years. That puts in peril a system that has helped drive the most successful global economy in history. If I were a minister, I would cut regional deals wherever I could. National interests do not stand still. However, these deals create trade diversion, distortions, privileges for some, and I have yet to see a non-WTO deal that has an independent, credible disputes system or one that handles agriculture effectively.

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