Strategies and Tactics at the World Trade Organization (WTO)


by Umberto Mazzei
Global Research
2009-11-10


Geneva -- The WTO is an important multilateral forum because it attempts to negotiate the future. The unacknowledged purpose of creating the WTO was to perpetuate, through international agreements, the pattern of trade imbalances in the international economy. The ploy is to convene a forum to negotiate an equitable amendment. The tactic is to wear down the resistance with an apparently repetitive immobility. Therefore, the Doha Round, labelled Development Round and intended to phase out farm subsidies - which have increased – is now only about market opening and the word development is totally absent.

The irony of the negotiations is that all countries claim to seek greater market opening, while all of them call for "flexibility" to keep them closed.

Developed countries which benefit most from current imbalances, do not want to give up anything tangible, but keep demanding more market space for their industrial products (NAMA) and their subsidized agricultural exports. This process of asking without giving created an escalation of a technical imbroglio of unmanageable complexity for countries that do not have the backing of an specialized team. The wear on resistance is visible; issues sharply rejected before by developing countries are now in the negotiation texts. The rhetoric of "win-win" deals vanished and there is only left the vulgar ambition to win at the expense of others.

The objectives of the negotiation

There is much rhetoric, but the original and secret aim of the negotiations is to open markets to the international production and marketing of international cartels. The cartels are stateless, but control governments in developed countries, who speak for them; if any one has doubts, take a look at the handling of the financial crisis. The international cartels control is resisted politically in some developing countries, who have their own industries and a large population making their living on agriculture. Such is the case, for example, with nuances, of Argentina, Brazil, China, India, South Africa.

Agriculture is essential to political sovereignty, as is well known by those who have suffered or suffer - like Gaza and Cuba- hunger and deprivation due to blockages, which are acts of genocidal war. For that reason the axis of the negotiation is agricultural goods. In agricultural trade there is a clear unfairness and the main problem are the price distortions caused by agricultural subsidies, which actually go more to the intermediary that to the producer.

For reasons of geography and abundant labour, tropical and subtropical countries should be the major exporters of agricultural products. Europe and America are not efficient in agricultural production, but subsidize and also protect it with high tariffs. Until there, we find a logic based on food sovereignty criteria. The irrational fact is that Europe and America, thanks to those subsidies, are the major agricultural exporters, with prices below the cost in developing countries, a dumping which is ruining local farmers and local economies.

Some countries, like Argentina, Australia, Brazil, New Zealand, are very efficient and still compete, but with lower profits, because developed world subsidies lower world prices. That makes farm subsidies an instrument that prevents creation of capital in agricultural countries. Such practises are labelled free competition, level play or other terms of neo-liberal talk.

Divide et Impera

The principle of "divide et impera" (Divide and Conquer) is Roman, but is well practised by Anglo-Saxons and other colonialists. The map of Africa shows old national communities separated by artificial lines, that now we must respect. The Spanish America was fragmented by supporting regional warlords. The English and the Brazilians divided the Rio de la Plata into Argentina, Uruguay [1] and Paraguay. United States and Britain encouraged separatism in Great Colombia and intervened to atomize the Central American Isthmus.

Developing countries in the WTO have an overwhelming majority and therefore must be divided. The first division occurred outside the WTO, when international cartels achieved all they could ambition through the free trade agreements (FTAs) which the United States and Europe signed with countries where they controlled the ruling classes. WTO negotiations are therefore limited to those developing countries that they do not control.

At WTO, an effective divisive tool is the "Special and Differential Treatment" principle, which is something like "pay me latter". Based on this principle there are arbitrary divisions such as "least developed countries (LDCs)" and "small economies" who are exempt - for now- of giving concessions and therefore of issues to negotiate. When we see that the LDCs are still dependent former colonies and that the concept of small economies was promoted (Guatemala heading) by countries that had signed FTAs with the U.S., we know who is behind it.

There are divisions that arise from the negotiation process. There are five country groups related only to agricultural trade: the Cairns Group, G20, G33, G10 and the ACP [2]. The Cairns Group [3] (efficient agricultural countries) requests removal of all subsidies and open markets. The G-20 calls for the same, with reservations. The G-33, are 45 developing countries that defend (special products and safeguards) vulnerable subsistence sectors, but only 8 are still active, because 37 of them were given the opiate of small economies. The G-10 are industrial countries (sensitive products) that protect their strategic agricultural sectors. The ACP defend their European agricultural preferences from erosion by trade liberalization.

At “Non Agricultural Market Accessâ€