Posted on 10/25/2005 9:32:46 AM PDT by hedgetrimmer
Rich countries must abandon farm subsidies and give more market access to poor states if the Doha trade talks are to succeed, the head of the World Bank said today. Bank chief Paul Wolfowitz made his appeal amid fears that the World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting of ministers in Hong Kong was in jeopardy because of the absence of progress on farm subsidies.
Writing in the Financial Times, Wolfowitz said the need to reduce protection on agriculture was a central element of the Doha talks. He warned that unless serious concessions were made by all sides, the Doha talks would fail "and the people who will suffer the most are the world's poor".
Wolfowitz, formerly a leading Pentagon official, called on the U.S. to step up efforts to cut farm subsidies and urged the European Union to do more on market access for products from poor countries. He added, however, that developing countries also had to open their services and manufacturing markets and lower their own agricultural protection.
Wolfowitz said it was not morally justifiable for rich countries to spend $280 billion (£158 billion) - nearly the total gross domestic product of Africa and four times the total amount of foreign aid - on support for agricultural producers.
The current round of WTO talks stalled in Geneva after wealthy countries failed to reach an agreement on lowering domestic agriculture subsidies and tariffs earlier this month.
Mark Vaile, the Australian trade minister and deputy prime minister, said the E.U. and "particularly France" were responsible for the deadlock because they had refused to accept a plan to cut European farm aid.
"They need to understand they are threatening the future of global trade and cheating millions of the world's poor out of new hope," Vaile said. "It's not enough for them to provide aid and debt relief when the benefits of liberalizing trade are so much greater."
An agreement in Hong Kong is supposed to pave the way for the conclusion of the Doha development round next year, but deadlock on farm subsidies has threatened to scupper the entire process.
The E.U. - generally seen as the villain of the piece by developing countries and the U.S. - is working on a second and final offer this week. The move follows what the U.S. described as its "bold" proposal for trimming the most damaging of its multi-billion dollar agricultural subsidies by up to 60% and phasing them out within a decade.
Development activists say the U.S. scheme is double-edged because it insists on poor countries opening up their manufacturing sectors, a step that could lead to the sectors' collapse in the face of foreign competition.
The U.S. plan has put the E.U. on the spot, and it has struggled to come up with a unified position. France believes the latest round of common agricultural policy reforms - which cut the link between the level of subsidy and the amount farmers produce - went far enough, and is refusing to budge.
The idea of cancelling the Hong Kong meeting has been proposed, but Australia has rejected it. "I don't believe the meeting should be postponed, even if the E.U. does not put forward a better proposal," Vaile said. "I believe the E.U. and France would need to account for their actions before the parliament of world opinion."
Wolfowitz increased pressure on the industrialized world when he said the temporary discomfort of industrialized countries in getting rid of farm subsidies was "nothing compared with the daily discomfort and deprivation faced by the world's poorest people".
He's not defending subsidies, you mean.
"he's a jerk"
Maybe, maybe not. I'd rather argue facts and theories and not get into a mud-slinging exercise
"the dollar is far too strong"
I agree
"I don't want to see the entire US agriculture industry decimated so we all have to eat crap imported 3rd world food."
You have a point there. However, I suspect we won't have to do that - it will be family farms that lose, and corporate farms in the US (and Australia) that win. And I will win since my taxes won't go to subsidize anyone.
and so long as he and the other DC honchos are dining at the finest restaurants, if the rest of us are eating vegetables sowed with human fecal matter and sprayed with pesticides - who cares.
I agree wholeheartedly. You can't outsource food production. If the culture of African governments was better, there wouldn't be any problems. Remember Zimbabwe used to EXPORT food.
The problem lies with the governments of the poorer countries not subsidies. Subsidies actually keep food cheap in the respective countries so the poor of those countries can easily afford food. If subsidies are taken away, farmers stop growing as much food in order to raise prices. Who gets hurt? The poor.
Wolfowitz sounds like an international socialist.
That's not the way I read the article. He slams Europe, not the US. Especially France.
Yep. Article I, Penumbra XIX.
Agricultural subsidies assure that there is a surplus supply of staple commodities.
While this may be economicly "inefficient", it is preferable to "free market" conditions which are cyclicly subject to shortage conditions.
Wolfowitz should be aware of this, and is willing to subject the industrialized world to the same food "deprivation faced by the world's poorest people" simply to reap profit from the skyrocketing prices that occur during food shortages.
IMHO, such treachory is essentially a crime against humanity.
And Wolfowitz deserves the consequences which that term implies.
This is the key thing. Cyclical shortages of food will not help much market economy and will destablize the political system. In this point promoters of "free" market show their lack of imagination.
If Liberals want to get rid of subsidies cause of fairness...fine I'll take it. Lets just end them.
He can think butterflies will solve world hunger if it suits my ends. His reasons or rhetoric are immaterial, my priority is subsidies and cutting them, whatever does that, and whatever fooolish logic is used that accomplishes that is fine with me.
BTW the subject of the thread is the marxist rhetoric of "free trade" not subsidies.
A big part of Wolfowitz claim happens to be cutting subsidies in the name of free trade, so Subsisides, by his arguement is part of this thread.
Granted, while I like lower prices and more choices as much as the next guy, I'm more concerned with cutting wastefull marxist subsidies, if the logic that is used to do that is also marxist, fine, as long as those subsidies get cut.
And no, I don't care what Wolfowitz thinks or says as long as he gets the desired results I want.
Sometimes the ends do justify the means.
And whatever the results will be?
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