While the World Trade Organization is not normally seen as a development organization, a strong, rules-based trade system is still critically important for developing countries, and the WTO is at the center of that system. Later this year, the organization will select a new leader to succeed Pascal Lamy and the expectation is that the person will be from a developing country.
Next week could be a big week for trade policy, or, more likely, yet another disappointment.
The United States could help developing countries by opening its trade with poorest countries.
WASHINGTON — With a complex and difficult situation grinding on in Libya, the uprising in Syria, war in Afghanistan and fresh uncertainty about U.S. assistance to Pakistan, many Americans feel beleaguered about international involvement.
At the same time, they recognize that the U.S. cannot disengage from a globalized world. If only there were a simple, low-cost way for the United States to intervene for good in the world.
“This agreement is an important step toward a global rule-based trade system…”
There actually seems to be hope that next week’s G20 summit will move beyond the tired mantra to finish the Doha Round and give a push to the Millennium Declaration commitment to provide duty-free, quota-free market access for the world’s poorest countries. This is an opportunity to contribute to job creation and growth when the global economy is still fragile. Furthermore, it would have minimal impact on importing countries since the least-developed countries account for around 1 percent of global trade.
Earlier this month, senior fellow Kim Elliott and I discussed ways to improve trade preference programs for the least developed countries (LDCs) with colleagues at the World Trade Organization, the
On Monday, CGD senior fellow Kim Elliott and I met in Geneva with World Trade Organization (WTO) staff and members of the subcommittee on the least developed countries (known as the LDC group) who are preparing for the once-a-decade United Nations conference focused on least developed countries.
This article also appeared in the Business Standard.
Back in 1971, the then US Treasury Secretary, John Connolly, told his European counterparts that the dollar was “our currency, but your problem”. Today, it seems that China has returned that favour. Its currency has become a problem for the US. Not just the politics but the intellectual climate has become charged with even Nobel laureate Paul Krugman urging strong trade action against China. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has a damned-if-I-do-damned-if-I-don’t choice facing him in mid-April, when he is required by law to pronounce on whether China is a currency manipulator.
My colleage Arvind Subramanian published an intriguing Op-Ed in the Financial Times this week. In “The Weak Renminbi is Not Just America’s Problem” Arvind notes that the undervalued Chinese currency is a global problem that requires a multilateral response. He then argues persuasively that neither the United States nor the IMF can be expected to persuade China to revalue its currency. Instead, he says, such action should come from the WTO.
I wrote in a CGD Note last week with Tom Slayton about how the Philippines are engaging in aggressive buying techniques that seem designed to drive up prices, raising the specter of another rice price crisis such as what befell us in early 2008. When more than 3 billion people—more than half of whom are very poor—depend on rice for their daily diet, a repeat of 2008 would put many in danger.