Talks on free trade stall

Officially, the Doha Round of talks on a global free-trade agreement is only "suspended," but "moribund" may be more like it.
It is unquestionably a setback for expanded world trade, and thus gladdened the hearts of the noisy opponents of "globalization" even as it delays the coming of a measure of prosperity to desperate Third World countries.
The blame for the failure of the talks, aimed at reducing and, where possible, eliminating tariffs and other trade barriers, seems equally apportioned among the major parties -- the United States, European Union, Japan, Brazil, India and Australia. They were unable to come to mutual agreement on reducing tariffs and subsidies in their powerful agricultural sectors.
However, free-trade negotiations tend to move in a series of lurches and pauses. There have been eight rounds of talks since World War II, and this latest round, named after the capital of Qatar where the discussions began, has been going on for five years. And the economic incentive for them to resume in some form is substantial. Thanks in great part to tariff reductions, world trade has more than quadrupled, to over $12 trillion, since 1985.
For the United States, there is a looming drawback in the collapse of Doha. In 2002, President Bush reversed course and backed a farm subsidy bill that was more costly and inefficient than the system he had pledged to replace. That bill comes up for renewal next year, and absent a Doha farm agreement, there is no pressure on Congress to reform those bloated subsidies.
Different arena
It also means the cause of free trade will move to a different arena -- the growing number of bilateral and multilateral free-trade agreements, with NAFTA being the most notable example. The United States is already party to 12 FTAs, six more are awaiting congressional approval and another 11 are in negotiation. But the piecemeal process of FTAs is less efficient than a single, global agreement, and leaves some nations on the outside looking in.
Congress can greatly enhance the U.S. ability to act if global talks should resume. Lawmakers should renew Bush's trade-promotion authority before it expires next June. The authority allows the White House to negotiate a trade agreement and requires Congress to vote yea or nay on it without amendment. Absent that, Congress tends to tear apart for parochial reasons deals already agreed upon.
Renewing the authority would affirm to our skeptical trading partners that we are indeed committed to free trade.
Scripps Howard News Service