Future Of Globalisation

This week, The Economist published an article entitled 'The future of globalisation'. As previously posted, the Doha round of trade talks was an opportunity for political leaders to improve the efficiency and equality of free trade. Unfortunately, the failure of Doha "signals a defeat of the common good by special-interest politics. If the wreck is terminal--and after a five-year stalemate, that seems likely--everyone will be the poorer, perhaps gravely so." Here is the end of the article:

Is Doha's collapse just a failure to advance, rather than a reversal? Probably not. True, the seas of world trade are calm. Trade has been growing much faster than global GDP. High commodity prices and robust growth mean that the call for protection is low. But although the system will not fall apart overnight, with the years, the rust will set in.

Next year, the American president will lose the power that Congress has granted him to negotiate trade deals without them being picked to pieces by the legislature. That will make it hard to revive Doha. Rows about farm trade could be aggravated by next year's American farm bill. The ill will evident this week could spread if American and European manufacturers start to shed lots of jobs in a downturn. Western complaints about the piracy of intellectual property could sharpen rows with developing countries.

What's more, the WTO's crucial trade-disputes procedure could easily come unstuck. After this week's failure, next time the WTO rules against America, Congress will not take the offence kindly. Put all of these together, and it is easy to see how easily the whole trading system, not just one round of talks, could be wrecked.

The Doha round was launched after the attacks of September 11th 2001 as proof that a prosperous and united world could rise above Islamist terrorism. This week, faced once again with violence that they seem powerless to halt, political leaders had it within their scope to make the world better off. They failed.