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".
That's silly.
Low price food should be tax-free.
Trade Tarrifs should be imposed by all countries.
And those tarrifs should be proportioned according to the relative costs of living among the trading countries.
For example: If the cost of living in India is 1/10th the cost of living in the USA, then the USA should impose a tarrif of 1000% on Indian goods and services.
And when India buys US products, India should either impose no Tarrif at all--or perhaps a negative tarrif, to be used as a credit to reduce the US tarrif on Indian goods.
Now that is fair and balanced. workers should not be penalized nor rewarded based on how much or how little it costs to live in their country.
This is false. Until around time of Reformation in the Western/Northern Europe and couple centuries later in South/East Europe, the trade and money based exchange was a smaller part of economy.
And at that time the Western Civilization was already in mature form!
You need to recheck your math. If you add a 1000% tariff you make the good 11 times as expensive.
Now that is fair and balanced. workers should not be penalized nor rewarded based on how much or how little it costs to live in their country.
But you want to punish consumers based on how much it costs to live in their country. How is that fair? You want a huge tariff on Columbian coffee? Why? To protect all the American coffee growers? How about oil? You want a tariff on Mexican oil because the cost of living is lower in Mexico? That'll teach those Mexicans to sell us oil. What will gasoline cost in your protectionist dream world?
Another way of setting prices is for people to get paid for what their skills are worth. This is what most Americans want because most Americans have skills that are more valuable than someone from say, Chihuahua. Sure, there are some agree with your post and want higher taxes imposed instead of higher wages earned; but since I'm part of the 'valuable-skill-group', I'm just glad that those guys are just a noisy minority.
It sure as hell is for me and my kids.
When my grownup kids want money I tell them to go find a place where they can trade their time for money. It's also called 'gainful employment', and I wish the idea was being taught by more parents as the only real solution to poverty.
U.S. Proposal. The United States proposed on October, 10, 2005, as part of a comprehensive proposal involving all areas under negotiation, specific elements for domestic support reform in developed countries. Key components include:
- - Amber box: 60% cut for the United States, with an 83% cut for the EU
- Blue box: further reduction of the 5% cap to 2.5%
- de minimis: a 50% reduction in the current allowance (from 5% to 2.5%)
- Overall trade-distorting support: 53% cut for the United States, 75% for the EU.
- Green box: no material changes in the criteria, and no cap on expenditures
- Litigation protection: protection against WTO challenges if a member controls support below new, lower, allowed levels.
Um, yes. Read my previous posts.
Yes, it was a smaller part of the economy, and that's why they were poorer than we are now!
Sheesh!!!
About time someone noticed the emperor wasn't wearing any clothes. Farm subsidies are socialism and wrong.
Hehe. Hedge thinks subsidies are dandy. Of course she's blond.
You got the causes and results wrong. It is because the Western Civilization became stable and more affluent the money based economy could develop.
I would suggest that if a farmer is entitled to subsidies then the guy who owns the shoe store down the street is also entitled to them. They both own their own business, they both sell a product we can't live without, they both work hard, they both can fail or succeed based on their own ingenuity and hard work. I no more support giving farmers free money, than I support taking money from rich farmers. Farming is a business, no more, no less.
Yes - a cultural infrastructure of property rights must exist for trade to flourish, and for wealth to grow as a result of that trade.
Unfortunately, I know that's not what you meant, but at this point, I'll take what I can get.
A market-clearing price, so to speak. ;^)
True. Just we need to remember that the growth of wealth is a side effect, possibly beneficial, but is not the main objective of the civilization.
Beepbeepbeep! Category error!
You, like other people, have purposes - civilizations do not.
Who would ever be in a position to assert that such and such were the "purposes" of a civilization?
That would be grotesque intellectual vanity.
P.S. You are hardly alone in this type of conceptual error. See Chairman Mao etc.
Whats an amber box?
Stop it. You're confusing me with your logic :^)
Yes, hedgetrimmer claims to be against Marxism but favors ever larger government interference in the economy. Like I said, she's blond.
Civilizations are not the blind force of nature to be used as a mere material to get wealthy or comfortable. They are being built with great and heroic effort by generations of men following some spiritual/religious/moral vision.
But when the original purpose/meaning of the civilization is forgotten the decline begins.
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