I saw Alan Beattie speak about the WTO negotiations this afternoon. He covered a great number of trade-related topics in his hour-long discussion, many of which would be familiar to those who read his columns (e.g. 1, 2, 3). Here are a few of his remarks that caught my attention:

“No one agrees what development is or what’s good for developing countries.” So the Doha Development Round has translated into each country defining “development” to favor its own interests.

“We’re very sorry about that two centuries of subjugation. Got any sugar?” — on Europe’s trade preferences for former colonies, which result in African LDCs having “the best market access in the world.”

“No one in the system cannot afford to have Doha fail.” Therefore no country will make it happen.

“[Customs reform] is more important than anything at Doha.” Apparently many countries’ ports now process exports more quickly due to the US imposition of security standards after 9/11, which granted political leverage to those seeking customs reform.

“They’re the ones coming out with exciting new acronyms.” — on why journalists tend to focus on institutions

“Three part-time amateurs make up the law as they go along.” — on the WTO’s dispute settlement mechanism, where in some cases the panelists are also trade negotiators.

“I have never come across a truly consumer-led free trade campaign.
‘What do we want?’
‘Marginally cheaper sugar!’
‘When do we want it?’
‘Phased in over seven years!'”

I’ll have more on Beattie’s predictions about the Doha round later.

Ever been unsure about the identity of the G-20 when someone mentioned it while discussing the international economy? That’s no surprise. As Alan Wood notes, there are two.

The group that involves countries making up 85% of global GDP: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea,Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. Plus the EU.

The group that negotiates on agriculture at the WTO: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, China, Cuba, Egypt, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Paraguay, Philippines, South Africa, Tanzania, Thailand, Uruguay, Venezuela, Zimbabwe.

7 countries are members of both G-20s. One G-20 has 19 member countries (plus the rotating EU presidency). The other has 21 member nations.

The rich G-20 was institutionalized in 1999, while the agricultural G-20 only came into being in 2003. The rich G-20 was created as an extension of the G-7 after informal meetings of the G-22 and G-30.

It’s simple, see?

The Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel will be announced Monday at the earliest.

allofmp3.com is becoming a major issue in the Russian WTO accession talks.

Sir Ronald Sanders argues that US legislation prohibiting international gambling is protectionist:

Further, the Bill, passed by Congress in September, expressly makes legal bets through the Internet on US horse racing, US Internet lotteries, US fantasy sports and, more critically, allows states and Native American tribes to authorise Internet-gaming of almost any kind that occurs wholly within the borders of the state in which they are located.

So, even though the moral argument is being touted, and the religious right in the US has welcomed the Bill, it has little to do with morals and more to do with stopping Internet gaming companies from outside the US providing services to US customers.

Bob Goodlatte, the Congressman from Virginia, summed up this protectionist position when he declared that the Bill would stop “US $6 billion from being sucked out of the economy” annually.

It is this very protectionist position that caused successive governments of the small Caribbean Island, Antigua and Barbuda, to bring a case against the US to the World Trade Organization (WTO)…

A WTO Panel has already ruled that the US has to bring its laws into conformity with its international obligations. This new Bill, which specifically permits a whole host of domestic Internet betting opportunities, is even more blatantly discriminatory against the supply of gaming services to the US from other countries than US law was before Antigua and Barbuda won its ruling from the WTO.

Therefore, the WTO should take a very dim view of this very protectionist development once Antigua and Barbuda draws it to their attention…

The context of the Bill’s passage also raises serious questions of just how much study Senators gave to it, and the extent to which they really understood that it was also a trade issue with implications for the US in the WTO.

The Senate adopted the Bill in a late night pre-recess session of Congress. It was tagged on at the last minute to the Safe Port Act that was designed to stop companies from other countries (such as almost happened with a Dubai company earlier this year) having security rights at a US port. Many of those who voted for the Bill to cramp Internet gambling were really concerned about the security of US ports.

The catch-22 of TPA & Doha has been discussed repeatedly by trade folks over the past few months, though I have yet to hear anyone offer a solution (Jagdish Bhagwati’s optimism in June notwithstanding). Apparently the USTR doesn’t have one either:

Daniel Drezner: There seems to be a catch-22 on reviving Doha. Other countries won’t negotiate seriously with the United States unless they believe that we can get TPA renewed. At the same time, the only way that TPA is likely to be renewed is if Congressmen seen the outline of a Doha deal. How does one escape this conundrum?

Susan Schwab: Good question. [Long pause.]

NYT:

RIO DE JANEIRO, Sept. 10 — Despite repeated declarations of their desire to resuscitate suspended global trade negotiations, representatives of leading industrial and developing nations meeting here this weekend were unable to agree on a resumption date.

Robert McMahon has a nice round up of the latest talks at CFR.

If you’re frustrated by the Doha round’s failure, you might seek solace in this November 2005 piece (.doc) by Professor Dani Rodrik. He argued that the “development round” was oversold:

Talk to World Bank and World Trade Organization officials, and you will get hugely inflated claims about the benefits that the Doha round would bring. These officials often make it sound as if the livelihood of hundreds of millions of poor people in developing nations hangs in the balance…

It would be hard to identify any poor country whose development prospects are seriously blocked by restrictions on market access abroad. Any country with a sensible development strategy has the opportunity to grow its economy, with assistance from trade.

He also warned:

Indeed the only serious risk of “failure” is that the rich countries would take their own rhetoric seriously and react in unproductive ways that prove self-fulfilling. The United States, in particular, could intensify its pursuit of bilateral deals where it is able to impose increasingly inappropriate policy priorities on smaller nations.

These excerpts may make Rodrik sound like Arvind Pangariya, but reading the full article will correct that impression.

The deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs and the Under Secretary of Agriculture for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services are both leaving the White House for private sector gigs. That is probably more reason to suspect a lengthy suspension of the Doha talks.

Nice article on the relevant political factors in the failure of the Doha negotiations by Guy de Jonquieres of the FT.

I ask, the AFP answers:

The Philippines, on behalf of a core group of 21 developing countries, as well as other states, rejected the EU’s proposal to continue with negotiations on trade facilitation during a WTO negotiating group meeting, the source added.

They said that the group dealing with the issue could not progress independently of the other areas of the Doha Round, invoking a World Trade Organisation undertaking by which all the negotiations are linked, he added.

In the Doha talks, the so-called Least- Developed Countries, many in Africa, were to get quota-free and duty-free access to sell products in wealthy markets without being asked to open up their economies. Mandelson said Tuesday that he favored pushing ahead with these measures – agreed to at a WTO ministers meeting late year in Hong Kong – even without a full Doha agreement. “We should extract from the rubble a significant development package,” he said. [IHT]

Since both the US AGOA and EU EBA preferential programs have limitations (AGOA has tariff rate quotas; EBA delays liberalizing sugar, rice, and bananas), there is room for this brand of trade liberalization. Does “pushing ahead with these measures” mean coordinated unilateralism by the rich countries or low-level activity at the WTO?

(Based on the work I’ve done on AGOA’s impact on beneficiaries’ exports, I’m skeptical of characterizing its expansion as “a significant development package.”)