How can the U.S. move the Doha Round forward?
The Doha Round is moving forward slowly. That might not be so bad, but time is running out. The Hong Kong meeting of member nation ministers didn’t accomplish much. Claude Barfield surveys the views of some knowledgeable observers (“The Doha Round: Bang or Whimper?”) and comes down on the pessimistic, “whimper,” side. Agricultural interests in the E.U. are a key stumbling block to progress. Large developing countries are also reluctant to make the industrial and services concessions that might give the E.U. a pretext to compromise. Two short papers look at political steps the U.S. could take to put pressure on the large developing countries, and/or the E.U., to move the negotiations forward.
