Wow. Time flies when trade talks are crumbling…I looked back in my archives here and it’s been almost two years since I mused about the crumbling world trade talks known in the parlance as the Doha Round. Today’s Wall Street Journal article tells us that the world leaders who attended the APEC summit were desperately trying to save Doha:

Wrapping up an annual summit, the leaders of 21 Asia-Pacific economies said breaking a deadlock over trade in agricultural and manufactured goods was vital to saving the current trade negotiations. "There has never been a more urgent need to make progress" in the World Trade Organization talks, said the leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, whose economies account for nearly half of world trade.

"We pledge the political will, flexibility and ambition to ensure the Doha Round negotiations enter their final phase this year," the leaders said in a statement. "We call on our WTO partners to join in this vital effort." Most of the leaders then headed home from their two days of talks — the culmination of a week of consultations among senior officials and hobnobbing and round-robin diplomacy among the leaders

    I’ll repeat what I said back then: I’m actually not opposed to a world-wide plan for trade–except it has to be governed by rules that are set not by corporate lobbyists (who dominate these trade discussions) but by representatives of communities and workers throughout the world. And, so, the constant pressure being applied to the WTO–most of it coming from countries in the global South–is slowing down the WTO pace. And that’s a good thing.