The biennial conclave of the World Trade Organization in Buenos Aires has followed the distressing course of serial stalemates. Wednesday’s fizzle, therefore, was hardly surprising. Indeed, the relevance of global trade negotiations in the era of e-commerce is now open to question. The latest round has floundered on the rock of the US’ refusal to grant India and certain other countries a permanent waiver from WTO rules for its domestic programmes. Given the expansion of digital protectionism, a forbidding challenge confronts the WTO, most particularly its failure to adjust with a changing global economy. While that must be the larger perspective of international trade, the 11th ministerial talks have collapsed in the face of the US refusal to cooperate with the entity ~ an anathema, if not an anachronism, to the likes of Donald Trump.
Indeed, WTO is said to be facing an existential assault from the Trump administration. It is painful to reflect that the talks have collapsed over one of life’s essentials ~ food ~ with the US reneging on its commitment to find a permanent solution to the public food stockpile issue. Small wonder that the developing bloc, pre-eminently India, is deeply disappointed. With the member-nations having failed to break the deadlock during the final session of the ministerial jaw-jaw, the impasse might persist for some time yet. The fact that there was no customary declaration at the conclusion of the Buenos Aires round is testament to the breakdown, one that is embedded in America’s disengagement.
From climate-change to food stockpile, Trump’s America is proceeding at a tangent. While the World Bank has been assertive on the issue of environment, there has been more of tinkering rather than assertion on the other subject that is no less close to the bone. For India, its failure to successfully push the food security issue was a disappointment, but officials have reportedly drawn comfort from the fact that the country did not yield any ground on other issues and kept its defensive interests in various fields intact. The fact remains that the delegation had to play on the backfoot on quite the most critical issue.
The fate of the conference was sealed when the US team informed the meeting that a “permanent solution” to the food stockholding issue was not acceptable to America. Having failed to dictate its foreign policy to the comity of nations, the US is intent on setting its agenda on the import and export of food, indeed a facet of contemporary economic history. Sad to reflect, America’s robust position against agricultural reform, based on current WTO certitudes, has resulted in a deadlock without any outcome on agriculture or even a work-programme for the next two years. In the immediate aftermath of its failure in Alabama, the Trump administration has had its way in Buenos Aires… though the two are radically different issues.