It is not stretching it to suggest the next ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization in December will determine the future credibility, and maybe the future, of the organization.
Last week, WTO director general Pascal Lamy conceded the obvious – after close to a decade of negotiations and with a ministers’ meeting planned for December, an agreement on agriculture is not possible in the short term.
Instead, he begged negotiators to concentrate on what should be the easiest part; agreeing on a package of concessions for the world’s poorest countries that give their trade goods tariff-free, duty-free access to developed country markets.
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Rules for trade with more developed developing countries like China, India and Brazil would have to wait for next year.
And if they are tackled successfully, only then will agriculture and non-agricultural market access issues be engaged again. It is an incredibly low bar, virtually an admission of failure.
Since the talks were launched in November 2001 in Qatar with the shadow of the Sept. 11 attacks still darkening the landscape and the spectre of Afghanistan almost visible across the sea from the negotiating site, little real progress has been made.
The launch was in many ways a signal to the bad guys that the world economy would continue to function and grow despite them. The round would concentrate on trade rules that would help developing countries prosper, stamping out the need for radicalism.
But in that desperation was the seed of its failure. There was no real consensus about what should happen, no real political will for compromise and no clear definition of when a ‘developing’ country like China quits benefiting from rules meant to give the developing world a break.
Meetings in Cancun, Mexico; Geneva and Hong Kong broke down without a deal because there was no real basis for a deal.
Now, 10 years later, the Doha mandate seems dated, out of step with the boom in some of those so-called developing countries like China, India and Brazil.
Canada, the United States and Europe have been clear that they are not willing to sign a deal that gives those major competitors trade access breaks without the disciplines on subsidies imposed on developed countries.
So the December meeting looms and the relevance of the WTO negotiating process hangs in the balance.
A package for the least-developed countries should be achievable. If not, there is no hope.
But beyond that, ministers will have to lay out a credible plan for how to tackle and resolve the tougher outstanding issues including agriculture. That seems far less likely, so why bother?
Canada has invested much time and effort in the WTO over the years, arguing that rules-based trade is essential to the country.
Export sectors see it as a means to greater foreign market access. Protected supply managed sectors have spent many hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying over the years to keep their protections.
Would it be worth it for these sectors or for the Canadian government to continue to invest in the process?
It is a question many countries are facing and it must keep Lamy awake at night wondering about the future of his rather lucrative job. Does he have a hat with a rabbit in it?
