Everyone’s talking about the Doha mirage. The Group of 20 leaders — which includes some lamest ducks — actually considered the possibility of hosting a meeting at their level to conclude the Doha Round. Over a dinner and lunch, the leaders debated on how to conclude the Doha project in their meeting 10 days ago in Washington.
Though none of them are unaware that Doha in Swahili would mean an empty bag, they were at it thanks to a concerted effort by Brazilian President Lula da Silva, US President George W Bush, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
These worthies seemed pretty determined about their negotiating engagement. Otherwise, the Doha project will never come to an end, they reasoned. Initially, they said it would be a framework agreement. Later, they discovered that it would be a mistake to give such a title. Obviously, some of their sherpas must have told them that a “framework” agreement already exists in the Doha negotiations. It was signed in 2004 by the outgoing US Trade Representative Ambassador Robert B Zoellick.
The framework agreement further clarified how the Doha mandate has to be negotiated and amplified on the commitments that the developed, developing, and least-developed countries will undertake as part of the Development Round. It is another story that the US is not prepared to respect the July 2004 Framework Agreement or even the Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration of 2005.
When the history of the Doha trade negotiations is written, surely, the US’s role in striking down the developmental goals will figure prominently. Indeed, the biggest change in the Doha battle between 2004 and 2008 is how agreed mandates are turned upside down just to suit the US and its powerful lobbies. Since the suspension of Doha talks in 2006, the US was aided and abetted by a leading developing country which claims to be a champion of the poor countries in the world and a smug World Trade Organisation official.
Anyway coming back to the leaders’ noble intentions, the moot issue is what would they have negotiated if a meeting actually took place among them? That raises several questions about the competence and ability of leaders like Bush to go into the nitty-gritty of the Doha details. What would he have told his most-favoured-nation-India-friend Manmohan Singh on Mode 4 (the movement of short-term services providers on a non-immigration basis from one country to the other) which is of vital interest to New Delhi? Or how would Manmohan Singh explain to Bush why India would need triggers of little over 100 per cent and easy rules to impose special safeguard mechanism for curbing sudden surges in farm imports?
Two things would have happened if these leaders proceeded to negotiate: either an agreement under duress or an unprecedented chaos. In all probability, the deal would have been struck with leaders like Manmohan Singh wanting to pay up for services received in nuclear or other spheres. How does it matter if the livelihood of over 600 million peasants is leveraged for the few benefits to be made from nuclear power?
Thank God, it did not happen. But no one can rule out that it will not happen in a different format. Paragraph 13 of the G-20 statement says “we [the leaders] instruct our Trade Ministers to achieve this objective [agreement on modalities that leads to a successful conclusion to the WTO’s Doha Development Agenda] and stand ready to assist directly, as necessary.”
But this war-like call from Bush failed to muster support from his own powerful constituencies. Chiefs of the US Farm Bureau, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the Coalition of Services Industries told him last week to abandon the Doha ministerial meeting and not to lock his successor into a questionable deal. In the US, trade policy is decided and determined by the Congress and the administration has no negotiating mandate at this moment. Poor Bush ought to have known from his disastrous eight years in office that winning friends at home is more important than drafting Singhs and Hu Jintaos to agree to the empty Doha for the sake of legacy!
