I Swear, I Had Nothing To Do With This...

On Monday night, I recommended that, given President Obama's depressing timidity on US trade policy, WTO Members should "formulate appropriate contingency plans, such as putting the [Doha] Round on ice until, oh I don't know, 2013 when the White House will (hopefully) be occupied by someone more amenable to free trade."  Well, less than a day later, it became crystal clear that pretty much everyone in Geneva, except the Obama administration of course, agrees with me (emphasis mine):

The likelihood of the Doha round of world trade talks being declared dead this year rose on Tuesday when it became clear that even a partial deal would not be possible.  The talks, named after the Qatari capital in which they were launched in 2001, have drifted further towards oblivion in advance of a twice-yearly meeting of ministers this December.

Pascal Lamy, the World Trade Organisation’s director-general, told negotiators in Geneva on Tuesday that the WTO’s negotiating function was “in paralysis”. He urged member countries to use the December meeting to have a broad conversation about the future of Doha rather than try to make concrete progress.

Negotiators have tried to rescue a minuscule part of the talks by proposing a stand-alone “early harvest” package to be agreed in December which would extend market access to some of the world’s poorest countries and reduce cotton subsidies – a subject of particular interest to a group of west African nations.

But the US said on Tuesday that such an agreement would not be possible because of the refusal of other governments to accept other elements in the package....

Michael Punke, the US ambassador to the WTO, said on Tuesday that the stand-alone deal was impossible. “It has become clear to us and to many others that a so-called early harvest package is not happening and is not going to happen,” he said. “As we feared, participants have proven much more comfortable in talking about what others can give than in talking about what they can contribute themselves.”

A deal to give the least-developed countries (LDCs) completely free access to rich nations’ markets and reduce cotton subsidies would require difficult commitments by Washington. The US has already failed to reform its generous payments to politically powerful cotton farmers, despite having had them declared illegal by the WTO, and a deal for the LDCs would cut across the existing US scheme to give preferential access to all African countries.

Yi Xiaozhun, the Chinese ambassador, took implied aim at the US, saying that the insistence on bringing in new issues was crippling discussions. “The intention of various members to put on their own demands . . . would finally kill the core package that the LDCs really need,” said Mr Yi.

The Doha round has made no significant progress since a ministerial meeting collapsed in mid-2008 in Geneva. An increasing number of officials admit privately that the round will never conclude, but as yet no government has publicly declared it over.

We all see what's going on here, right?  Any deal on cotton and LDCs - relatively minor issues that almost all WTO Members support - would require legislative changes to US laws and, of course, the expense of political capital by the already-campaigning White House to get that done.  As I said on Monday, the President's unwillingness to spend such capital on trade issues is well-documented at this point.  Indeed, when it comes to our WTO-illegal cotton subsidies, the Obama administration is so utterly unwilling to take some political lumps and pursue necessary reforms that it's resorted to bribing Brazilian cotton farmers (with taxpayer dollars, of course) instead of modifying the offending programs.

And let's please not kid ourselves here and blame Congress for the Administration's political pusillanimity on these trade issues - the House voted to terminate the Brazilian payoffs just last month, and both the Republican-controlled House and Democrat-controlled Senate recently showed a willingness to address US preference programs by attaching them (rightly or not) to the US-Colombia FTA implementing legislation.  So if the White House really wanted to get a cotton/LDC package through Congress, it could very likely do so.

But that would require, you know, political courage and effort - something sorely lacking these days over at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (and not just on trade).

So, given these sad facts, what does USTR do in Geneva?  They submarine the December deal by making other demands that many nations adamantly oppose.  Who knows whether they did this to try to buy off domestic opposition to the cotton/LDC package or to just kill the chances of a final deal, but the result of their demands was the same in either case: inevitable failure.

Again.

Yes, other Members like the EU also have made additional demands, but do you really think that they would maintain their positions if the United States expressed robust support for the basic LDC/cotton package?  I sure don't.  Indeed, as Phil Levy and I argued last December, bold US leadership could have realistically secured a robust Doha package in 2011.  Certainly it could get this feeble package across the finish line.

And yet, here we are.  Sigh.

So, once again, American political cowardice has helped scuttle an important trade liberalization initiative.  And, once again, supporters of robust American free trade policy are reminded that we, like the WTO negotiators in Geneva, should just pack it all in until 2013 (hopefully).

Any optimism before that time would just be foolish.