World trade organization
One should probably start an argument on the issue of the Group of 21proposals with a statement from Oxfam International's 2002 report RiggedRules and Double Standards: "the problem is not that international trade isinherently opposed to the needs and interests of the poor, but that therules that govern it are rigged in favor of the rich.' Starting from this,I aim to prove not only that WTO's role is almost exclusively in favor ofthe rich, but also that the important players in the WTO system do notabide by the very rules that they have created. The recent Cancun round of negotiations within the WTO, regardingespecially agricultural subsidies, showed that finally the developingcountries starting with giants such as India and Brazil, preponderantlyagricultural countries with significant contribution to world trade, backedup by China, could finally make a common point and a stand still againstthe European Union and the United Stated. The strange and somewhatrevolting point of discussion is that, while boasting liberalization andfree trade, the EU and the United States spent an approximated $300 billionin subsidies, almost all of them going to agriculture. Isn't a subsidy a
I have to stateagain that these unfair trade rules come not necessarily from negativeimpacts that trade liberalization will have on the G-21 economies, but fromthe fact that not everybody abides by them. The developedcountries have asked for improved foreign investment regulations and forbetter competition in what governmental contracts are concerned. This can be used as a threat or as a blackmail to get things moving withinthe WTO, as Kantathi Suphamongkhon, Thailand's trade representative hasclearly stated out. If we are totalk about the government contracts, it seems again that the developedcountries are making a set of rules, but only for the developing countriesto respect. How would it be, for example, that a company from a developingcountry to compete with the American companies for a governmental contract. Thedeveloping countries demand a more liberal context on agricultural and someof the industrial products trade. re the free trade boasted as the main program by the WTO' Ofcourse, you do not use taxes to raise imported goods prices, but you followa reverse pattern and use subsidies to lower national goods prices and makethem more competitive on the foreign market. Only such can we hope for a moreliberal international trade and we don't have to remind the developedstates that this was the primary goal of the WTO in the first place. We already have the NAFTA (North AmericanFree Trade Agreement) and signs that the US have already started talks inthe same direction with other countries in Central and South America andhas clear intentions in this sense with the countries in the Middle East. We have shown above that it is indeed the developedcountries that are trying to halt economic integration within the WTO bythe signing of different free trade agreements that are, as we know,outside the WTO. As an example, Timken, a renowned American companyhas bought a facility in Romania in 2000 and has since invested some $60million and has employed more than 1,000 workers. The G-21 is no longer preparedto accept deals that are only thought of by the United States and theEuropean Union and it is no longer willing to abide by negotiationsorchestrated by the former two. There is another issue of growing concern for the G-21 countries andthat is an increased wave of regionalization outside the WTO. At the latest conference in Cancun, the developed states have broughtabout a series of demands that should be discussed here.
Common topics in this essay:
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Acceptance Essays
