The Hindu Business Line : WTO: A muddied ministerial

At Cancun, India, China and Brazil frustrated the `concerted' efforts of the US-European Union combine to bulldoze the rest of the world on an agenda that suits it most. It is one thing, however, to stall the talks, but something else to extract winning points from the deliberation, , says K. P. Prabhakaran Nair.

The Minister for Commerce and Industry, Mr Arun Jaitley... India might have got itself a breather at Cancun, but that is no reason to celebrate. — Kamal Narang

THE US Trade Representative (USTR), Mr Robert B. Zoellick, at the conclusion of the collapse of the Cancun talks made a tongue-in-cheek statement "Whether developed or developing countries, there were "can do" and "won't do" countries here.

The rhetoric of the "won't do" overwhelmed the concerted efforts of the "can do". "Won't do" led to the impasse'". The statement is, obviously, targeted at India, China and Brazil, which together frustrated the "concerted" efforts of the US-European Union (EU) combine to bulldoze the rest of the world on an agenda that suits it most.

There is no need for India to `rejoice' at the stalled Cancun talks, as seems the case, with the chief negotiator, Mr Arun Jaitley, telling the Indians that "The positive development has been from the point of view of India, that we dominated the agenda".

To be quite candid, it is one thing to stall the talks, but something entirely different to extract winning points from the deliberations.

The road to Doha was paved with imponderables two years ago, but then, there was a glimmer of hope, when Mr Jaitley's predecessor, the ailing Mr Murasoli Maran, made another tongue-in-cheek reference to the "constructively ambiguous" nature of the deliberations at Doha, because, he and his team members saw the declaration as a cleverly stage-managed attempt by the members of the Quad — the US, the EU, Canada and Japan — to mollify the developing and least developed world.

That we saw through the game at Cancun — not just with the support of big brother China and far off Brazil, but, even with neighbours Malaysia and Indonesia, which were equally, if not more, vociferous in their opposition to the line of thinking by the US-EU combine — is something like a breather, as yet, but, no reason to celebrate. Come December, if not the ministers, but the senior officials will once again meet to deliberate in Geneva, because, whether we like it or not, the world, which has come to `accept' the WTO, is inching towards a final date, that is 2005, when everything has to be "on place", according to the US-EU combine, that is!

Perhaps, the most important and, yet, distressing aspect of the entire WTO talks at Cancun is that, while the US-EU combine projects a picture of `conciliation', in truth, it pre-empts all efforts at the inclusiveness of different points of view when formulating proposals. Two instances are examples of this exclusive mindset.

First, the position of the US on genetically modified (GE) organisms such as seeds, and GE foods by the US and the cotton plan of the West and Central African nations, such as Benin — the leading cotton producer of Central Africa on which the livelihood of millions of impoverished Beninians depend — Burkino Faso, Mali and Chad.

For instance, the US Department of Agriculture Secretary, Ms Anne Veneman, claimed during the talks that the US has a policy that ensures adequate safety measures on GM foods.

Though the issue of human safety falls under the domain of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in reality, it has no mandatory safety assessment measures leaving the question entirely in the hands of the manufacturers of the GM foods. In fact, in June, the US Consul-General in Chennai, Mr Richard D. Haynes, made a strong appeal to India that the salvation of the developing world, in general, and India, in particular, lay in the acceptance of GE crops and GE foods.

Perhaps one of the most distressing examples of the insensitivity of the US-EU combine on the plight of such poor African countries of the West and Central African regions refers to how the exploitative tactics of the US-EU combine shot down a moralistic and very reasonable proposal by these nations to dispense with all the trade-distorting subsidies in cotton worldwide to ensure the very survival and development of the cotton sector in the impoverished African region, where more than 80 per cent of export earnings comes from this crop.

While the US Ambasador maintained that the initiative must address the details covering the entire manufacturing chain, the EU was unwilling to provide any financial succour to these very impoverished nations through a transitional compensation mechanism until the subsidies have been finally phased out.

It is very important to point out in this context that in the US, southern states such as Mississippi form the "cotton bowl" and the very same US had argued and got differential status for cotton and rubber on the tariff mode, arm-twisting the less vocal nations (at that time of earlier negotiations) such as India to succumb to the "two crop theory" of cotton being classified as an "agricultural crop" while rubber was classified as an "industrial crop".

The economic damage this manipulative tactics, to which New Delhi fell prey to, some years ago — thanks to the "NDA mindset" where quantitative restrictions were removed on hundreds of items in one go — has done to the rubber farmers of Kerala, is monumental. Natural rubber farmers of the state have almost been strangulated by the price fall.

Where does all this lead India to? Far from throwing up its hands and exiting. However much India raises its decibel in protest, now or in the future, this country will only be at the periphery of piloting economic changes on a global scale.

The new WTO entrant China will only bide its time to strike when it suits it most. It appears the known devil is better than the unknown. It is far too late in the day to retract from Marakkesh. It is time agriculture is overhauled to suit the changes of the day instead of crying hoarse all the time that this is a nation of 700 million `farmers'.

In fact, it is just about a couple of thousands of these `farmers' who hold the nation to ransom through ill-gotten subsidies and protections that ravage the environment and is a perpetual drain on the exchequer. The rest of the vast millions struggle with an acre or two. For them, WTO or no WHO makes little sense.

While we keep the "WTO dialogue" going, making agriculture or the life of one to two acre farmers more rewarding is, indeed, a tall order, which no Cancun can do.

(The author is a senior fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.)

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