The Current and Recent Trade Negotiations at the WTO - Essay Example

?Assessing the economic benefits that might occur as a result of a successful conclusion to the current and recent trade negotiations at the WTO Introduction “There is no way you sustain economic growth without accessing a big and sustained market” (President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, cited in Dollar, 2004, 2) The start of the twenty first century global trade had signalled the coming in of an era of free trade, and open economies. Efforts are now on to give this free trade a more globalised form by more negotiations and implementation of preferential trade agreements, and these processes have gained momentum in the recent years, which is quite evident from the large number agreements that are “being simultaneously negotiated and implemented, [while there are] potential(s) for significant, and perhaps unanticipated, interactions between them” (Strutt and Rae, 2008, 1). This century has specifically seen the Asian- Pacific regions that have been showing more interest in negotiating and implementing preferential trade agreements, with China, and now India, being main the ‘hub’ in the Asia-Pacific liberal trade group’s ‘hub and spoke’ agreements with other members of the WTO. An increase in this preference for bilateral and regional trade agreements or free trade agreements (FTPs) had been observed right from the 1980s, and has often been described by the experts as the rise in a ‘new regionalism’(Majluf, 2004). By the 15th September 2008, we find that there have been 222 regional trade agreements notified to the World Trade Organization (WTO) as been implemented, with many more in the pipeline. This regionalism has been of particular interest to many of the Pacific Rim countries (Lloyd, 2002). Even China has been diverted from its earlier engrossment with the assumption of WTO, and has started seeing gains through these regional negotiations. However coming to a general consensus on the topic of bilateral relations and the issue of free international trade has never been easy, especially as certain industrial sectors and labour groups within the economy, have been said to be adversely affected through international competition. The debate between neoliberals and the leftists or the anti-neoliberal group form the core between these refusals to come to an easy consensus. On one hand we find that the leftists group claim “Globalization has dramatically increased inequality between and within nations” (Jay Mazur, US union leader, 2000); while on the other hand the neoliberals present statistical figures in their behalf and claim that “globalized developing countries have increased their per capita growth rate from 1% in the1960’s... to... 5% in 1990’s...much of the rest of the developing world-with about-2 billion people...their aggregate growth rate was actually negative in the 90s”( Collier and Dollar, 2002, 5). So the road to globalisation, free international trade and bilateral relations had never been easy with constant frictions between the experts from both camps. The current trade negotiations is the The Doha Development Round or Doha Development Agenda (DDA), and is an ongoing process that had started in November 2001, and continues to develop till date, owing to a lack of consensus amongst the members of the participating countries. The chief objective of this negotiation round is to cut down on the various trade barriers that exist worldwide, and subsequently to increase international free trade. In the Doha round of talks in 2008 (held in Geneva), negotiations were stopped over the lack of consensus on a range of important issues such as  removal of the industrial tariff and non-tariff barriers, services, agriculture, and various trade remedies (Fergusson, 2008). These differences created a cleavage between the developed nations that were on side and led by United States (USA), European Union (EU), and Japan; while on the other side of the divide were the strong developing countries like China, India, Brazil, South Africa and South Korea. The primary area of contention was over the issue of maintaining the agricultural subsidies that were being seen as trade barriers (Hanrahan and Schnepf, 2007). Intense negotiations over this issue continued in 2010, where again a general consensus could not be achieved. My article will assess the economic benefits that might occur as a result of a successful conclusion to the current and recent trade negotiations at the WTO, and will try the identify the beneficiaries behind the failure to reach a consensus on major global trade issues. Discussion A brief overview of the Doha round of negotiations: In November 2001, participants from 142 member countries of the WTO met in Doha (Qatar), for the inaugural of the 4th WTO ministerial meet. The meeting initially met with some success when the members agreed to start with a new series of multilateral/bilateral trade negotiations (Fergusson, 2008). The new series of negotiations were primarily aimed on building upon the agreements and treaties that had been signed in the Uruguay Round of negotiations, and were on the issues of trade in services and agriculture, which came under the already-established work plan of the WTO. Here the developed countries mainly hoped to achieve success through the various negotiations, which would help them to increase their commercial activities related to services, to reduce the existing high tariff rates on industrial products, and to get a direct market access to here-to fore protected agricultural trade. They had hoped to achieve entry into the agricultural arena by negotiating to get rid of the existing subsidies on agricultural exports, decreasing the high rates of agricultural product tariffs, and slowly removing various other forms of national support on the trade that gives rise to a closed market. Talks were resumed in Cancun (Mexico) in 2003 and continued into the Geneva round in 2004, where an agreement was reached on the future outline of the negotiations. This outline was seen as a potential problem solver, because it provided a future framework for all the problematic negotiations associated with services, direct access to the agricultural and non-agricultural markets, and other trade facilitation; however there were no deadlines set as regards the conclusions of the ongoing talks. Thus, in 2005, we find that negotiations were again stalled for a general lack of consensus on the same contentious issues during the Paris round of talks. The 6th ministerial negotiations were resumed in December 2005 in HongKong, and were seen by many experts as the last chance to reach a consensus on the various problematic issues, upon which an agreement could be produced by 2007, which had become the deadline for these set of negotiations, as the year marked the expiry of the U.S. trade promotion authority. However on 21st April 2006, the then WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy announced that the negotiators were not able to reach to conclusion by the 30th April 2006, which had been set as the deadline for reaching a consensus on forming an outline for the next round of talks, and so 6 more weeks had been given as to continue with the negotiations. The issues remained more or less the same, and talks centred mainly on creating a framework for future talks, agricultural market access and tariffs, services issue offers, trade facilitation, and the ‘aid for trade;’ even though it seemed highly unlikely that what could not be achieved for so many years, could be completed and finalised in just a matter of 6 more weeks, and as predicted the talks did not reach any agreement. The 2008 talks broke down mainly due to disagreement on the issue of agricultural market access and reduced subsidies on agriculture related exports, where we find that “the main stumbling block was farm import rules, which allow countries to protect poor farmers by imposing a tariff on certain goods in the event of a drop in prices or a surge in imports. India, China and the US could not agree on the tariff threshold for such an event. Washington said that the "safeguard clause" protecting developing nations from unrestricted imports had been set too low” (BBC news, World trade talks end in collapse, 2008). A similar scenario continued into the 2010 talks, where no consensus could be reached on the topic of multilateral international global trade. Thus, a picture emerges where we find that the recent ongoing talks are centred on the issue of further expanding economic globalisation and increasing various multilateral and bilateral trade matters amongst the member states. In the context of this failure to reach to an agreement in the current trade talks in the continuing series of negotiations of the The Doha Development Round, we will now take a look into the very basic concept of globalisation and its impact on the nature of the world trade, which underlies the very basic disposition of these negotiations. Globalisation and its impact on world trade: the term Globalisation "is a widely-used term that can be defined in a number of different ways. When used in an economic context, it refers to the reduction and removal of barriers between national borders in order to facilitate the flow of goods, capital, services and labor...”(Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, 2002, 1). Though in broader sense globalisation may refer to an integration of the society, culture, and economy of the various countries worldwide, brought about by the advancement in the technological innovations; however to an economist the term globalisation simply associates with economic globalisation that is rapidly taking place by the integration of economies of individual countries with the international economy, through global trade and commerce, various foreign direct investments (FDIs), capital flows, and large scale immigration (Bhagwati, 2004). In this context, Croucher refers to globalisation as a force that is being jointly driven by the combined factors of technology, economy, politics, biology, society and various cultural traditions (2004, 10). Amongst these various factors, economic globalisation is the most controversial aspect, with its two contending issues, the neoliberals and the leftists. For the neoliberals, globalisation is an absolute must for gaining worldwide economic prosperity, and as Bardhan claims, all critics and detractors of global trade are either ignorant of the entire process or have their own vested interests in scuttling the progression of free bilateral and multilateral trade (Bardhan, 2003). Bhagwati aptly sums up the neoliberal sentiment when he states, “No one can escape the antiglobalists today.....This motley crew comes almost entirely from the rich countries and is overwhelmingly white, largely middle class, occasionally misinformed, often wittingly dishonest, and so diverse in its professed concerns that it makes the output from a monkey's romp on a keyboard look more coherent” (Bhagwati, 2000, 134). To get an overview of the benefits from economic globalisation one must take a look at the nations that have removed their internal trade barriers and joined the free global market, with those nations that till continue to have closed economies. In this context we find that “globalized developing countries have increased their per capita growth rate from 1% in the1960’s... to... 5% in 1990’s...much of the rest of the developing world-with about-2 billion people...their aggregate growth rate was actually negative in the 90s”( Collier and Dollar, 2002, 5). Such is the impact of globalised trade that World Bank in its papers Globalisation, growth and poverty delineates all the nations worldwide, into two main groups, which are the “newly globalizing” nations, /‘more globalised countries,’ and ‘non globalizing,’ nations / the ‘less globalized’ countries (World Bank, 2002). This paper lists all the developing countries according to their measure of globalisation (by taking into account the changes in Trade/GDP ratio index of each country), and it is seen that the first three (India, China and Brazil) in the list are the most globalised. These countries show high rates of economic growth, a significant decrease in poverty rates, and a stable inequality ratio (ibid). Thus, seemingly we find that globalisation is having a positive effect on the countries that have opened up their economies. Nations persists on the theory of free trade in order to realise various national goals. Economists contend that pursuing free trade, without any sort of state imposed regulations, restrictions or barriers, gives a country many benefits, which are mainly economic in nature. These economic benefits made from free trade can be classified as ‘static’ or ‘one-time gains,’ which include profits for the product manufacturers, and the consumers, and activating gains that collect over time and cast positive effects on the long-term rate of growth of a country. While it is not always possible to measure these effects precisely, most economists believe that the total effect of global trade on the national economy, as a holistic measure, is positive (that is, the sum total of costs are far lower than the sum total of the gains). Besides ushering in economic prosperity, experts contend that free trade in a country also helps to bring in democracy, since “benefits of trade brings prosperity that, in turn creates or expands a middle class that then seeks the end of authoritarianism...” (Bhagwati, 2002, 43-44). This picture of economic betterment is most relevant to developing countries, like India, China and Brazil. Srinivasan (1996) in his papers indicates that the positive changes as observed today in the modern Indian economy, goes to the various economical reforms and liberal trade policies that the government undertook during the early 1990s. In fact it further says that the various social reforms observed in modern India appeared only after the wave of globalisation set in. However, China with its authoritarian state rule is a developing country that is also showing a move for the free trade, and as Chang(anti-neoliberal stance) maintains that in the context of international trade with the rise of neoliberals and modernisation, the actual rise of the developing countries are receiving a setback (Chang, 2007). This growth of China is in direct contrast to the contended theory of a trade-off between liberal economy and democratization. As regards the developed countries like US or the EU, with strong and well formed economies, the global form of trade does not show much impact on its overall economic results, income distribution, or on the average salaries of its citizens (Gottschalk and Smeeding, 1997, 645). “Trade liberalization, however, by reducing foreign barriers to U.S. exports and by removing U.S. barriers to foreign goods and services, helps to strengthen those industries that are the most competitive and productive, and to reinforce the shifting of labor and capital from less productive endeavors to more productive economic activities” (Jackson, 2007, 10). Economists acknowledge the fact that profits in long-term production values coupled with higher levels of specialization, serve to create a vast expanse of adjustment costs that are short term in nature. This is owing to the fact that in such cases of long term production values with specialisation, both financial capital and human resource tend to move away from the functioning of the less efficient industries, and enter into the more efficient industrial arena. Such vast adjustment costs are indeed difficult to calculate, but they can be significantly large enough to dislocate some sections of the society, industry, and also the labour force. These adjustment costs are always in the minds of the ministerial candidates that are representing the various countries at the negotiating tables under WTO. Often the failure to reach to a consensus arises owing to these high adjustments cost figures, making the negotiating countries significantly restricted in their proposals and offers, because of the opposition that would be created back home by various groups that would be at the receiving end of the open trade. These adjustment costs are very high for labour groups that form the unskilled worker class, devoid of higher education and any form of specialised training, thus leaving them without any alternate means of income. From the economic viewpoint it is however the consumer that gains the most from long term results of an open trade. With a change in the existing trade policies and regulations, there appears a subsequent change in the price factor of all traded goods, which leads to a change in that particular country’s ‘real income.’ There also occurs a transformation in the so called production efficiency within the national market, and all these factors ultimately combine to alleviate the country’s sum total economic condition. In terms of consumer gains the benefit derived by this segment from global trade, pertains to getting easy access to a wider range of available goods and services that can be obtained at lower prices than the goods obtained from the domestic production section. This wide variety of the available goods is most likely to enhance the overall consumer well-being, owing to the stiff competition that the presence of international brands create amongst the national production sector, leading to improved qualities; and this scenario was observed especially in India after global high quality products entered the market, forcing the domestic sector to start producing good quality products along with high levels of services (Das, 1998) In some cases, it has also been observed that the consumer gets a wide variety of choices, where he has access to different levels of qualities on a particular item. Thus this means the consumer not only pays less, gets a wide selection of products, but also gets the quality level he desires. With specialised goods being encouraged by the overall globalised economy, the consumers also get the benefit of receiving specialised goods. Thus from an economic point of view we find that if the world economy opens even further, the maximum benefit would be derived by the economies of the developing countries, their market value and product qualities, along with the consumers of these countries. So if the WTO negotiations eventually manage to come to an amicable settlement, it would be to a large extent for the benefit of the developing countries that have long since opened up their economies. The developed countries (their market, their consumer salaries, quality of products, etc.) do not stand to benefit much from the whole scenario of global trade, except for their big industry houses that may find some developing country where they can get cheap labour, and force their production costs to go down largely (another controversial aspect in WTO that is better known as the ‘dumping issue’). In the developing nations, besides the various “static” gains made from the global trade (as described above), experts have also suggested that liberal economies have a potential role in the compelling rise of a nation’s economy. “[A] full range of these effects are difficult for trade models to capture because they extend beyond the estimation time-frame of the models. Research into dynamic trade models concludes that there are important feedback effects and channels through which trade can alter the structure of markets and the rate of economic growth over the long run. By stimulating trade and investment, trade liberalization could add to these feedback effects” (Jackson, 2007, 11). In fact, a diverse and expansive literature on the various activating trade models that are studied to comprehend a nation’s economy, derives that trade liberalisation, transforms a country’s economic growth rate through a number of interlinked and simultaneously occurring market processes, which includes better access to specialized form of capital goods, augmentation of specialised human capital, the form of ‘learning-by-doing’, ‘skill- transfer,’ along with the entry of a wide selection of new products into the market (Krugman, 1990; Grossman and Helpman, 1989). All these market driven forces in turn affect the rate of economic development by transforming the rationale for various organisations, to start investing in the line of research and progressive development, which in turn leads to revolutionary technical changes that permanently affect the economy of a developing country. In this context, an U.S. International Trade Commission study reaffirmed that, “the dynamic effects of trade policy changes can yield substantially larger estimates than those based on static models” (The Dynamic Effects of Trade Liberalization: A Survey, 1993). In this context of large benefits that are derived from trade liberalisation, within the realms of a market of a developing country, we will now assess the impact of the various trade agreements made under the capacity of the WTO, as we try to comprehend even to further from an economic viewpoint as to who stands to gain and who stands to lose from an unsuccessful conclusion to the present round of negotiations that are going on under the WTO. Assessing the economic benefit derived from the trade agreements made under the WTO: in a negotiation for multilateral or bilateral trade relations, the various trade subsidies along with the barriers imposed upon the commerce by the state, forms to be the main device with which a country negotiates its conditions for a freer trade. This is the most important criteria, as big exporting companies need to expand their global market share, while various developing nations aim to improve their economic conditions by lowering or removing the various barriers and other restrictions imposed on trade imports. In such cases instead of going all by itself into the market and facing greater competition, the various nations prefer to negotiate and find conditions that would suit both sides on the negotiating table. “Where the government can offer some producers better markets for their exports, alongside lower prices for consumers, it becomes easier to resist pressure from import-competing industries to retain existing tariffs and non-tariff barriers” (Grimwade, 1999, 357). The two main processes followed by the various countries to achieve such mutually beneficial relationships under the regulations as outlined by the WTO, are ‘regionalism and multilateralism’. For the last 50 years it has been under GATT (in 1995 it came under the purview of the WTO), that the major trade liberalisation through various multilateral relationships have taken place, especially in the section of industrialised goods in the commerce conducted between the developed nations. However with the entry of the developing nations into the scenario of global market, GATT has failed to conduct successful trade negotiations between these two sections of the international market, and this led to the rise of regionalism especially amongst the pan Asian-Pacific nations, during the early 1990s (Table 1). ‘Regionalism trade’ relations now account for almost 60% of the global trade that takes place internationally, and this has led to further conflicts amongst the GATT nations that are not a member of a particular ‘regionalism,’ leading to claims of discrimination. These claims have opened up arguments as to whether preferential trade areas have formed trade diversion, or do they indeed bring in new trade. It also raises questions as to whether regionalism tends to assist WTO/GATT in encouraging free trade, or creates a hurdle in the entire process of global trade (Grimwade, ibid). Table 1: The various regional groups as seen globally, formed on the basis of trading relations. “The EU has completed its single internal market and agreed with 12 Mediterranean countries to free trade with them...the 18 countries of Asia-Pacific economic cooperation (APEC) forum- including US, Japan and China...the 34 democracies of the western hemisphere will devise a free trade area of the America (FTAA)...a number of smaller arrangements, including the ASEAN free trade area (AFTA) in South East Asia, and Merciosur (Argentina, brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) in Latin America, augment these totals” (Bergstein, 1996, 265). This has led to a large number of conflicts not only amongst the various regional groups but also amongst the ‘internal trading partners’ (within a same regional group) during negotiations in the recent round of ongoing talks under WTO. The extremely high financial stakes involved in the global trade have encouraged the economists to make a detailed analysis on the economic effects of lowering the existing trade barriers in the field of production goods and services rendered, and to derive the financial values of these effects. There are various methods that can be used to find the ‘cost and effect’ of lowering or removing the various trade in goods and services (Dihel, 2000). The 3 most common approach used for such calculations are the partial equilibrium model, general equilibrium model and gravity model. Partial equilibrium models are used in calculating the results emanating from the existent trade barriers and restrictions on a particular market sector, instead of checking on the overall national economy; while the gravity model calculates the cost and effects of trade barrier removal based on the concept that a nation with a larger economy will show a greater pull effect on the current trade flow, than the nations that have small economies. In this case, thus one can estimate that the present size of a nation’s economy and the distance between the commercial partners become important aspects while calculating the financial values involved in the cost and effects of a trade barrier removal (Wall, 1999, 39). Both the partial equilibrium model and the gravity model give us an average value of the monetary aspect that is seen during the calculations of ‘cost and effect’ of trade restraint removal, however these models lack an in-depth insight into effects of liberalisation of trade on the ‘labour and sectoral’ markets within a national economy. General equilibrium model, (also known as the computable general equilibrium or CGE model), in its calculation takes into account all the possible economic factors affecting a national economy and estimates the expansive economic effects that may be brought about while creating legislative policies in order to remove the trade barriers. The 3 models added together, through calculations that involve factors like capital accumulation, consumption of goods, amongst many others (Zarazaga, 2000), give us a holistic picture of both the intra and inter trade links that take place amongst the regional groups and also worldwide (Rivera, 2003, 2-5). Using these methods to find out the economic and other associated benefits within the market of a developed nation (taking the case of US); it has been observed by the economists that such bilateral trade relations would actually result in modest gains, for the overall U.S. economy. Table 2: Estimated effects on the economy of USA (in $ U.S. billions), from a 33% reduction in trade barriers that exist in its partners countries in the manufacturing sectors, agriculture, and services. The removal of these barriers is the main point of contention in the ongoing Doha Development Round; with US and the EU on one side and India, China, and South Africa on the other side (Source: Brown, Deardorff, and Stern, 2002, Table 1). In fact there are seemingly more losses that are taking place in certain sectors of US economy from the various multilateral and bilateral trade relations that it conducts with its partners. A study conducted by the WTO (2003) reports that in US since 1997 (the start of the era of global trade) “45000 steel workers have lost their jobs...30% of the country’s steelmaking capacity has filed for bankruptcy...while steel imports were on the rise” (Bacchetta and Jansen, 2003, 5). Thus, it becomes very evident that WTO trade negotiations for an open economy are of more relevance to the trading partners (primarily the developing nations); while the developed nations are now treading more cautiously owing to various internal pressures that are mainly arising from the labour section. Thus the situation is such that at present the developing countries are eager to open their economies, while the developed countries have become more protectionists, trying to safeguard their internal interests. A look at the recent Hong Kong ministerial declaration outcome shows us that instead of advocating for the worldwide development through various reforms that would affect agricultural products, non agricultural products, intellectual property and services, this declaration forms a sort of self sustaining ‘developmental package.’ There are various chimerical commitments given towards the special and preferential treatments of the developing countries pertaining to technical assistance and help in the capacity building of these nations, while the declaration very clearly states that the ‘aid for trade’ must not be substituted for developmental benefits that will arise if the negotiations end successfully. In this situation if negotiations are not conducted effectively by the developing countries, and the agreements are signed as per the conditions given by the developed nations, the outcome will be very easy to assess. The entire result of the DDA round of negotiation will go in the favour of the developed countries that are trying very hard to protect their own economies, and make substantial profits at the cost of the poorer nations (Fundira, 2009, 4-5). The main point of contention in the recent trade negotiations that are being conducted lies in the fact that pressure is being applied on the developing nations to reduce on the farm subsidies as well as decrease the trade tariffs on agricultural and industrial products. To solve the impasse it was suggested that: US would have to make arrangements for more subsidies in its support for its own national farm sector; EU would have to give more access to its agricultural sector; while India and Brazil would have to offer more tariff cuts (ibid). However no player was willing to make the first move, wary of little results in reciprocation and these impasses continue till date. In fact such is the situation that though in the WTO meeting in 2008, all the world leaders, in order to break the impasse, pledged that no protectionist measures would be applied; but barely had the pledge been taken, India imposed trade barriers on steel imports, US and the EU moved ahead to protect their automobile industries, France created a fund to protect its own companies, and Russia imposed various trade related restraints (Mattoo and Subramanian, 2009). So the situation has now become a no-win situation, and if the two sides don’t manage to see eye- to -eye very soon, both sides will stand to lose from the unsuccessful negotiations rounds, while WTO will lose its credibility as the international regulator of world trade. The final outcome of failed DDA talks would result in: USA and the EU would lose access to the huge markets of the emerging nations like India, China, and Brazil. The African farmers would lose out on the subsidised farm tariffs being offered to them by the EU; while the least developed nations lose out completely on getting a duty-free and complete access to the global market. if USA and EU continue subsidising their farm products, the farmers of the developing nations lose out, as it leads to an artificially created atmosphere of competition, that would in variably result in over production and unnecessary ‘dumping.’ The failure of these talks would in time create more FTAs and bilateral agreements that would lead to more trade regulations and increased tariffs and greater transportation charges, which would actually go in the favour of the developed nations (Fundira, 2009, 7-8). Conclusion: from the above discourse it stands out very clearly that if the recent rounds of talks fail it would comparatively harm the developing nations more than the developed nations; however the latter would also not be able to emerge unscathed. 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