Global talks to liberalize farm and industrial trade are on life support, and there is not a single character in the cast of supposed free-trade advocates around the world willing to step up and be the doctor. Not President Bush, who has downgraded the stature of his trade office by appointing a technocrat, Susan Schwab, to succeed his political ally, Rob Portman. Not Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, who has allowed the trade component of his campaign to end global poverty to fall by the wayside. And certainly not the European Union's trade chief, Peter Mandelson, who has not lifted a finger to prod big concessions out of the bureaucrats, labor leaders and farmers in France who live, eat, sleep and drink a steady diet of government subsidies.
After another in a long-running series of missed deadlines, things are looking grim. And that is a disgrace that highlights the complete hypocrisy of all those speeches about abolishing global poverty that the leaders of rich countries gave last year. This round of trade talks was supposed to finally address more than a half-century of unfairness in the global trade system. Back in 1947, when 23 nations agreed to start an international organization to promote trade and arbitrate disputes, the needs of poor countries mattered little. Industrialized nations were rebuilding after World War II, and they remained the economic masters of Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Over the next 50 years, that club, now known as the World Trade Organization, aggressively dismantled barriers against trade in industrial goods and services — the areas in which its members hold a comparative advantage. That same club dragged its feet on dismantling barriers against trade in agriculture and textiles, where poor countries have an advantage. All of that was supposed to change after 2001, when, reeling from the Sept. 11 attack and under intense pressure from the developing world, America, Europe and Japan agreed to slash agricultural subsidies while further liberalizing world trade in services and manufactured goods. Since then, negotiators have, unsurprisingly, made big strides toward agreeing how to cut tariffs in the areas important to the rich countries: manufactured goods, and, to a lesser extent, services. But the talks are stuck on agriculture.
The Europeans are the most to blame. But that does not mean the United States does not partake in the shame as well. America has proposed cuts in subsidies to farmers, but it needs to go further. Meanwhile, back in Washington, where lawmakers are preparing for the midterm elections, there is talk now that America should extend, rather than modify, its farm support laws. That is going in the wrong direction. World trade talks are notorious for coming back to life after being declared dead. But for that to happen, someone has to call in the paramedics. Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair are the most likely candidates. There is still time to demonstrate that all that talk last year about making poverty history was not just talk.
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