Trade talks in the news: WTO members suspended the Doha round of trade talks in July 2006. Trade forum reviewed 50 media sources for their reactions.

Most opinion-makers were seriously concerned about the future of world trade. There were also those who welcomed the breakdown in negotiations. Many voices called for restarting the talks, but few provided concrete solutions on how to do so.

Alternatives to a Doha deal point to bilateral and regional agreements. The widespread opinion is that this solution is far less effective than multilateral agreements.

Commentators also debate the future of the WTO. Should it help manage and monitor bilateral trade deals or only enforce existing WTO rules? Can it assume more flexibility, so that countries that do not wish to participate in specific negotiations and sign related agreements would not be obliged to do so?

ITC is listening to many voices as it helps developing countries identify their interests and position them appropriately in the trade debate.

A sample of recent commentary:

YALEGLOBAL ONLINE

All Fall Down

"Doha agreement or not, trade among the big countries is booming, their growth rates rising, with unemployment lines shortened. The wealthy nations can live with a stalemate.

The real losers are cotton farmers in West Africa, textile workers in low-income Asian and Muslim states, and low-income shoppers in the poorest quarters of America and Europe. The Doha Round was supposed to help the world's poor, by lowering subsidies that keep Mali's cotton out of textile mills, tariffs that limit the flow of Cambodian T-shirts and other clothes to shelves.

Edward Gresser, Yale Global, 27 July 2006

Plan B for world trade

The indefinite suspension of the Doha round [...] creates big risks for the world economy. A new explosion of discriminatory bilateral and regional agreements is likely to substitute for global liberalization. This will inevitably erode the multilateral rules-based system of the WTO. The backlash against globalization will generate more protectionism in the vacuum left as momentum toward wide-ranging reduction of barriers ceases, especially as the world economy slows and global trade imbalances continue to rise. Financial markets will become more unstable as international economic cooperation breaks down further.

3. Fred Bergsten, Institute for International Economics, Financial Times, 15 August 2006

The wrecking of the world trade talks was senseless and short-sighted

This disaster, born of complacency and neglect, signals a defeat of the common good by special-interest politics. If the wreck is terminal--and after a...