How France and Germany work to keep the third world countries (excuse me, LDC’s) poor:
The Doha round of trade negotiations is rapidly approaching a crisis. The behavior of some European countries is proving so selfish and shortsighted that key developing countries may soon come to the conclusion that it would be better to walk away from the table than carry on with wrangling over secondary issues while progress on the crucial one of agriculture is sabotaged.
Last week France and Germany cut a side deal that appears to rule out the fundamental reform of European agriculture, without which progress at the World Trade Organization is impossible. The deal aims to stop some subsidy cuts and perpetuate the absence of links between overproduction and the level of subsidies. In return for helping French farmers, Germany will get support on nonfarm issues dear to it.
So much for President Jacques Chirac’s oft-touted concern for the poor world. Having missed an opportunity as host of the Group of Eight summit meeting in Evian to lead Europe away from its annual agricultural subsidies of $50 billion – the biggest single contributor to Third World poverty – France is now stitching up the European Union’s reform plans. In the process, the Europeans are throwing away gains in influence that they expected from the global unpopularity of U.S. policies of preemption and military intervention.
Can we stop pretending that the French are better than other nations and realize that they are ONLY concerned with their own fianancial well-being? Before you get all gung-ho into your French bashing, recognize that we are not much better:
To underscore African anger, President Blaise Compaore Burkina Faso went to the WTO in Geneva last week to plead the case of African cotton farmers. He noted that many African countries opened their markets and ended farm subsidies in response to advice and pressure from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Now the poor but efficient farmers of Benin, Mali and Chad, as well as Burkina Faso, for whom cotton was a key crop, are being ruined by U.S. cotton subsidies.
Cotton subsidies in rich countries are 60 percent higher than the gross domestic product of Burkina Faso, and total farm subsidies six times greater than development aid. And there will be no farm subsidy reform in the United States unless there is also reform in the EU.
In short- free trade is simply a joke in the current rigged international system.
JKC
Good post, John.
You’re catching on, though, that much of what we call “free trade” is really “rigged trade.”
Keep it up and you’re going to end up sounding like one of us liberals… :)
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