Globalization and Fair Trade: Stiglitz on Doha

Joseph Stiglitz argues in an article that the failure of the Doha Round shows that the United States pays only lip service to free trade and that reviving those trade negotiations is in its interests. Money quote:

America and other advanced countries are the real losers from the demise of the Doha Round. Had the Bush administration fulfilled its commitments, Americans taxpayers would have benefited from the elimination of huge agricultural subsidies - a real boon in this era of yawning budget deficits. Americans would have been better off as consumers, too, with increased access to a variety of low-cost goods from poor countries.

Likewise, migration pressure would have been reduced, because it is the huge disparity in incomes more than anything else that leads people to leave their homes and families to immigrate to the US. A fair trade regime would have helped reduce that disparity.

Indeed, citizens throughout the rich developed world all stand to benefit from a more prosperous globe - especially a world in which there is less poverty, with fewer people facing despair. For we all suffer from the political instability to which such despair gives rise. But it is America that perhaps now stands to gain the most by reviving the Doha talks with a more credible and generous offer. America's influence in the world has suffered greatly in the last few years; the Bush administration's hypocritical use of free-market rhetoric while pursuing protectionist policies has made matters worse.