Collapse of talks seen as step toward better future for poor nations

Social Justice News
August 19, 2008

Collapse of talks seen as step toward better future for poor nations
Brandy Wilson, Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The collapse of the Doha trade talks in Geneva is a step toward a future of fairer global trade agreements, said Dominican Sister Maria Riley, senior adviser at the Center of Concern, a Washington think tank.

"Poorer countries are exercising their power and saying 'no, until we get a better deal,'" she told Catholic News Service in a phone interview Aug. 1. "Poorer countries like India and China are emerging and flexing their muscles. It's evening the playing field. It's a move to a much more diplomatic system."

The World Trade Organization talks failed July 30 when negotiators were unable to reach an agreement over levels for agricultural safeguards -- tariffs that countries can apply to protect their markets from a sudden surge in farm imports.

Negotiators could not agree on the trigger point at which such safeguards would take effect, with India and China holding out for a lower level and the United States pushing for a higher threshold. Since a sharp jump in food prices led to shortages and riots in some parts of the world earlier this year, developing countries have been seeking greater control over their agriculture sectors.

This round of talks was the latest in a series that began in 2001 in Doha, Qatar. Officially called the Doha Development Agenda, it has become known simply as the Doha Round. Agricultural tariffs and subsidies were stumbling blocks in negotiating sessions in 2006 and 2007, as well as in the 2003 talks.

U.S. presidential candidates Republican Sen. John McCain and Democratic Sen. Barack Obama have weighed in on the trade issue, but Sister Maria believes both are essentially saying the same thing.

"If you listen to both of our candidates, both pledge to make sure that trade operates in the United States' interest. It has been," she said. "Trade negotiations have improved the wealth of countries like the U.S., Europe, Japan and industrialized countries. Meanwhile, developing countries have become more and more impoverished."

"An economy where we don't make our neighbor poorer is not to our advantage," Sister Maria said.

She linked current U.S. trade agreements, like the North American Free Trade Agreement, to the influx of undocumented immigrants coming into the U.S.

"Our increase in immigration is one of the results of NAFTA. Dumping (exporting) our subsidized corn in Mexico put a lot of Mexican corn farmers out of business," she said. "You can trace the increase of 'irregular immigration' to the U.S. back to about two years after NAFTA went into place. That was something that Americans are not aware of."

She also suggested there is a link between increasing unemployment rates and current trade agreements.

"It's the working people in the U.S. who suffer, because they are the ones losing jobs. When they have to cut labor, we don't take it out on the stockholders and the CEOs. It's not our workers profiting, not even the small farmers. It's agribusiness and corporations," she said.

In a blog on the Center of Concern Web site, Sister Maria criticized the U.S. for putting corporate interests before the needs of poorer countries "A good trade agreement must address the needs of all, especially the most vulnerable, not just the powerful," she wrote.

In Latin America, Roberto Malvezzi of the Brazilian bishops' Pastoral Land Commission said the Brazilian government and large agribusiness owners were "unsatisfied with the result" of the trade talks because if an agreement had been reached it would have benefited exporters of soy and meat products.

But the commission and the small farmers who produce 60 percent to 70 percent of the food consumed in Brazil were happy with the lack of action, Malvezzi said.

Malvezzi noted that in this round of negotiations Brazil had distanced itself from other developing countries. In earlier talks, especially the 2003 talks in Cancun, Mexico, which broke down over farm subsidies, Brazil played a leading role, along with India, in demanding the United States lower or eliminate agricultural subsidies.

But this time Brazil split from the group of developing countries, causing some to call it a "traitor," Malvezzi said.

The government's position was more closely aligned with that of large farmers, who hold about 80 percent of Brazil's agricultural land, than with the 6 million small farmers who control only about 20 percent, he said.

Beverly Keene, coordinator of the Jubilee South network in Argentina, told CNS that the breakdown of the talks would have a political impact in Latin America.

"It is a strong warning that business as usual cannot continue," said Keene. "We don't need a Doha Round. We need a complete overhaul of the trade system."

The network, which arose in the 1990s to call for relief for developing countries that were saddled with heavy external debt, also monitors and lobbies on trade issues, especially free trade agreements.

The political ground has shifted in Latin America in the past few years with the election of presidents who have been less willing to fully embrace the free-market policies promoted by multilateral financial organizations in the 1980s and 1990s.

While there are still differences among the countries, "the way is being paved toward integration" among Latin American countries, Keene said. That poses new challenges, she said, but "they are challenges that we could only dream about a few years ago."

Contributing to this story was Barbara J. Fraser in Lima, Peru.

©2008 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

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