Washington, DC — When Kenyan and Ugandan delegations walked out of the World Trade Organisation's meeting on Sunday afternoon and Kenya's delegate George Odour Ong'wen declared to reporters that "the talks have collapsed and there is no agreement," United States Deputy Trade Representative Josette Shiner was startled; she shouldn't have been.
The signs were there well before the meeting began. Prior to the five-day session, South African president Thabo Mbeki had suggested that perhaps developing nations' delegations should join anti-globalization protestors on the sidewalks outside the negotiations, and European Union (EU) Agriculture Commissioner, Franz Fischler, had accused poor nations of being on a "space odyssey" and advised them to "come back to mother earth."
It was downhill from there. Africans in particular have long chafed at the power of the U.S., EU, Japan and Canada within the WTO.
On the issue of immediate concern to African delegations - eliminating trade-distorting EU and U.S. agricultural subsides - those two wealthy blocs put it on the back-burner and pressed for acceptance of so-called "Singapore issues" - new rules that would govern investment, competition, trade facilitation and government procurement that many poor nations believe would amount to surrender of their domestic authority and would further tilt the economic playing field in favor of powerful multi-national corporations.
In a Saturday night "green room" meeting, as the secretive ad hoc sessions that are held on the side of regular sessions are known, the issue was debated under the heading of "new issues" into the early morning hours of Sunday. This meeting only included The U.S., EU nations, and a number of other nations including Brazil, India, China, South Africa and Kenya now generally known as the "Group of 20 (developing countries)." It got nowhere. G-20 nations like India and Malaysia were adamant in rejecting the G-8 attempt to force through the trade-off.
In the plenary session later Sunday the deep division could not be bridged. "The general feeling is that we're being taken for a ride (by the G-8)" , said one African observer for an international agency who asked not to be named. This participant, like many delegates from African nations noted that the WTO's draft text on global trade offered nothing concrete on agricultural subsidies and nothing much on market access.
The EU refused to set a date for phasing out export subsidies and demanded that in exchange for some concessions on tariffs that block the export of their finished products to rich nations, poor countries would have to agree to cut their own protective trade barriers. The net result, says the G-20, would be a flood of cheap food imports that would further undermine their agriculture.
Four West African nations - Burkina Faso, Mali, Chad and Benin - asked Washington to slash the US$4bn spent annually on cotton subsidies (more than the combined value of their cotton production). The U.S. response was to argue that only a comprehensive initiative that expanded the world market from fiber to garment could improve the economic prospects for African farmers. "Create a bigger demand for t-shirts," sneered one participant.
During the Sunday session the EU continued to insist that it wanted talks to press ahead on new rules governing the four Singapore issues. African nations, in particular, felt their concerns were being dismissed. I thought, "Why are we here?" one participant told allAfrica.
Developing nations representatives went back to their members who insisted they wanted the four Singapore issues dropped from the draft declaration. South Korea and Japan said they could not support it unless all four were retained for discussion, at which point the chairman, Luis Derbez, Mexico's Foreign Affairs Secretary, said the talks had effectively ended. It made no sense to continue, he said, because the positions were irreconcilable.
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
What amounted to a mutiny on Sunday, may mark a new determination by developing countries strongly to assert their interests in an arena in which they are usually manipulated or bullied by the rich powers. "For the first time in the WTO, the developing world, united not on ideological grounds but on key and well articulated interests, acted in concert to advance its developmental agenda," says South Africa's minister for trade and industry, Alec Erwin.
The Group of 20, now being called the group of "20 plus" began as the group of 16. "It is a new coalition of developing countries that can negotiate on their own," explained one official. "They will be listened to if they make noise."
