International Affairs Forum

Sat. May 03, 2025

Around the World, Across the Political Spectrum

Roundtable Forum - THE FUTURE OF WORLD TRADE

In the wake of the failure of the Doha round, what does the future hold for world trade? What can, and should be done to get negotiations back on track?

Comments (2) |

smahmood - Pakistan

Fri, December 01, 2006 03:18 PM (about 18 years ago)
A number of steps are needed to rescue the Doha round. Firstly, the USA, Japan and EU need to cut their sizeable agricultural subsidies. Though agriculture is a small segment of global trade it has acquired political significance for the developing countries. These concessions will be important as a grand gesture of American and European willingness to go beyond narrowly perceived national interests for the sake of the collective good of all nations. All big developing countries also need to open up their economies for foreign investment. Concessions must be given not only by the rich countries in EU, Japan and North America by but also the big developing countries. Smaller developing countries may be afforded more time. All countries wil

gfreedman1 - United Kingdom

Tue, November 28, 2006 05:24 PM (about 18 years ago)
After almost five years of intense and arduous talks, the Doha round collapsed in July of this year. This is a major failing of governments in the developed and developing world, to tackle the appalling lack of free trade in the global economy. It also failed to provide the poorer nations of the world, with vastly larger markets in which to sell their produce, which would help to ease their poverty, and would provide and give them a hand up and not a hand out.

Philippe Legrain, Economist, Journalist, Author

Response: In the short term, the failure of the Doha Round will make little difference: the global economy is booming, and with it world trade. Optimists suggest that talks may resume soon after the US’s Congressional elections in November and that little lasting harm may be done. I hope they are right, but unfortunately that rosy scenario is highly improbable. The Round is unlikely to resume in earnest unt... more

John Battle MP , Member British House of Commons

Response: The Doha round is in suspension and is proving to be the most deeply disillusioning round of all time. It is not only blocking development progress, but making things worse by leaving a vacuum. Into that vacuum will move the bilateral agreements, which will increase inequality between the powerful and the poor trading countries.
During the development rounds, we talked about the limited negotiati... more

John Hilary, Campaigns and Policy for War on Want

Response: The global trade talks remain in limbo, and the airwaves are full of the sound of politicians and pundits lamenting this ‘lost opportunity’ for the world’s poor. Cue the obligatory statistics from the World Bank as to how much better off the world would be if the talks had succeeded in freeing up global trade. Roll out the Jeremiahs to predict that this will destroy the multilateral trading system... more

Dr Claire Melamed, Christian Aid

Response: The collapse of the Doha round may turn out to mean much less to world trade than you would think from the hyperbole which surrounded the dramatic finale to this stage of the talks last July.

This is not because there are not big problems with the way world trade works – there are – but because the WTO round of negotiations wasn’t tackling the real problems faced by poor countries anyway.

Th... more

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