“Three months have elapsed since the world trade talks stalled, and the time has come for bold and concerted action to restart the drive for an ambitious trade deal,” Brown wrote in the article.
“This initiative could lead to a statement about the future - a charter for a better globalisation - that would challenge the reactionary protectionist forces that have stalled recent liberalisation,” he said.
WTO director-general Pascal Lamy announced a suspension in trade talks in July because of clashes among six members: the US, European Union (EU), Japan, Brazil, India and Australia. Trade analysts projected the breakdown would make it unlikely that a pact would be achieved before 2009.
The Doha round of WTO talks was aimed at agreeing on what the World Bank estimated would have been $96bn in lower tariffs, subsidy reductions and other steps to stimulate trade. That proposal itself was scaled back from earlier efforts.
Brown urged the EU to “go considerably beyond” its offer to cut farm aid by 39% and said there was scope for the 25-state bloc to “go beyond the 51% currently mooted”.
The US also should go beyond a 53% cut in its own support for farmers, he said, and urged Brazil to reduce tariffs on industrial goods and India to cut tariffs on services.
“The push for trade needs more than new negotiating mandates today,” Brown said. “It needs new mechanisms to break the dangerous global logjam that is obstructing trade reform, allowing antiglobalisation and protectionist forces to gain support.”
National governments needed to agree on a set of values that would allow them to explain the benefits of free trade to their citizens so that governments weren’t subjected to protectionist pressure, Brown said.
The chancellor also said he wanted the world’s biggest financial institutions, corporations and leading public figures from rich and poor countries to “urge vital reforms”. In this context he proposed a “trade exchange” of political and business interests to expose the benefits of globalisation, particularly for the poorest countries, and push for change.
“In my view we should stake our governments’ future on getting globalisation right. We should stake our governments’ future on getting globalisation right,” Brown said.
Nine leaders of companies, including oil giant BP, cellphone operator Vodafone and US multinational retailer Wal-Mart, and Marcus Wallenberg, chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce, supported the call to restart trade negotiations.
In a letter to The Times, the business leaders said: “Millions of jobs are at stake. So too is the extension of international investment and the spread of knowledge, which are both vital to the success of globalisation and the fair distribution of its benefits.”
“Political leadership is now essential, and action in the next few weeks is imperative,” they wrote.
Hoping to help move the WTO talks forward, The Times said Brown was going to Brussels today, British Treasury Minister Ed Balls was heading to Japan, and Trade and Industry Secretary Alistair Darling was off to Brazil and India.
Source: Business Day
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