After marathon sessions, ministers at the World Trade Organization meeting in Doha finalized an agreement to initiate a new round of global trade talks. The last holdout, India, was mollified with multiple compromises, some of them reasonable and others questionable. But no matter how you analyse the particular issues that kept the delegates up all night, one thing is clear. The developing nations are starting to play a much bigger role in the trade arena, and this balancing of interests between the world's rich and poor could ultimately be good for free trade.

It won't all be smooth sailing, of course. One of India's demands was a softening of the patent rights of big pharmaceutical companies that spent millions to develop new drugs. This ultimately won't be good for the world's sick, since it will remove some of the incentive to find cures for their ills, and it will depress economic activity in the health-care field too. India also refused European demands that it open its markets wider to foreign investment.
But by exercising more clout, India and its allies can counteract the trendy arguments of rich-country protectionists that environmental and labour standards must be forced down the throats of the rest of the world. We hope they can also tighten up the treaty language that allows countries to use dumping cases to shut products out of their markets. Indian Commerce Minister Murasoli Maran was right to insist that the rich countries move faster to eliminate quotas on textile imports and phase out agricultural subsidies.

COMMERCIAL BREAK
SCROLL TO CONTINUE READING

Tension between the world's rich and poor nations, as well as violent protests -- mainly from middle class Westerners who think the way to help the world's poor is by placing manacles on the productive forces of capitalism that are their best hope -- scuttled attempts to start a new round in Seattle in 1999. But as U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick said, "We have removed the stain of Seattle."

There would have been stern words for India if it had insisted on its agenda to the point of derailing the new trade negotiations round this time as well. But as the last few differences are being ironed out, Maran's tough negotiating stance appears on balance to be a wake-up call to the developed world that leading the world toward freer trade will require participation from a broader range of countries from now on. This might make the negotiations tougher, but it could be good for the cause of free trade if it helps convince people in poorer nations that trade really is about creating wealth for everybody, not just the fortunate few.
One result may be renewed pressure on the European Union to finally do away with the absurd Common Agricultural Policy. Advertised as a program of preservation for Europe's pristine countrysides, it's real legacy is high prices for foodstuffs inside Europe and a barrier to lower-priced produce from poor countries. Bureau Report