Making Doha a bigger priority

I had the pleasure of going to the Washington International Trade Association discussion about the 2011 Congressional Trade Agenda.  It was an opportunity for the DC trade community to hear direct from key Congressional trade staffers what trade issues they thought would be keeping Congress busy this year.  It was an off-the-record discussion, so I’ll refrain from divulging any details – you’ll have to join WITA and attend next year’s event for that privilege!  But whilst I was delighted to hear that the agenda includes the WTO’s Doha trade round, I was struck that it didn’t feature very highly – and I find that difficult to fathom.

Trade is about jobs, whichever country you’re in.  As my colleague Patrick Thomas blogged last month, this Embassy has commissioned and released a study, “The Doha Trade Round: what it can mean for the 50 US states”, showing that Doha would benefit the US by $38bn in economic output and over 390,000 jobs.  Those jobs would be shared across each US state.  It is great to see progress being made on the three US FTAs with Korea, Colombia and Panama, but the 250,000 jobs that it is estimated they could create they fall 140,000 short of those on offer from Doha.  And, because it’s under the WTO umbrella, Doha would be global, comprehensive and enforceable across the globe.  The WTO’s dispute settlement system has  real teeth, which bite.  But we’ve only a narrow window – British Prime Minister David Cameron has cautioned that this year is make or break for Doha, because we can’t keep going around in circles.

So if it creates more jobs than all of the FTAs combined, if it would be enforceable across the globe, if it would open up developed country and emerging economy markets to trade in manufactured and agricultural goods, if it would level the playing field on agricultural subsidies, and if it would help strengthen today’s global supply chains through an agreement on trade facilitation, shouldn’t we make Doha a bigger priority?