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Miami Herald Miami waits in the shadows of WTO summit BY JANE BUSSEY Protesters, peasants and political pundits will make a show of force as world officials gather for the World Trade Organization summit set to open in Cancun, Mexico, on Wednesday. But for the first time since disputes over global trade burst onto the international scene with the 1999 Seattle protests, the fireworks inside the talks may overshadow the heat on the streets. As trade ministers from 146 countries attempt to break the current stalemate over trade negotiations, a number of developing countries have begun their own rebellion against the trade agenda of the richer countries in Europe and the United States. Led by Brazil, India and China, a group of 20 countries is demanding industrialized countries slash their farm subsidies before discussing lower tariffs on manufactured goods or agreeing to expand the scope of this round of negotiations to "new issues.'' ''We are feeling there is no momentum for a new round,'' said Sarah Larrain of the Chilean Ecological Action Network. This protest comes some 20 years after a never-repeated North-South Summit -- also held in Cancun -- buried Third World aspirations for a ''new world order'' and ushered in the wave of deregulation, privatization and trade liberalization that has characterized domestic and foreign policies. The United States has tried to lower expectations about the outcomes of the talk, but officials are still upbeat, especially after an agreement to help poor countries gain access to medicines. ''Our goal in Cancun is to provide the appropriate frameworks for us to negotiate real and ambitious trade reform,'' U.S. Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick said in a statement, calling on other countries to ``work constructively towards a positive outcome.'' The WTO trade ministerial being held Sept. 10-14 in Cancun also foreshadows the Nov. 20-21 meeting of Western Hemisphere trade ministers in Miami to negotiate the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas. Setbacks to the Bush administration's trade agenda in Cancun could create the same logjam in Miami, experts predict. ''The FTAA is so loaded in the United States and in Brazil, I don't think it is possible in 2004,'' said Washington trade expert Gary Hufbauer, a senior fellow at the Institute for International Economics. "They will make progress and they are paring down the agenda. If you pare it down enough, you can declare it a success.'' Thousands of Mexican peasants are set to join seasoned activists to protest the scope and tone of trade talks. But trying to prevent a repeat of street battles like Seattle, Mexican authorities will try to confine demonstrators to the mainland, separated by two bridges from the spit of land lined with resort hotels where trade negotiators, industry observers, nongovernmental groups and the international press will be. French courts have barred anti-globalization hero and WTO veteran protester Jose Bove from leaving France. But there are plenty of other advocates ready to take his place. After Mexico City's Reforma newspaper published a list of antiglobalization activists being tracked by the Mexican government, several thousand more sent messages to Mexico City asking to be included on the list. Trade talks have become such magnets for controversy because the negotiations behind closed doors translate into policies that affect daily lives. From questions over whether water systems, educational services and even the postal system will become fair game for privatization to whether the California champagne can actually bear the name, trade talks are about much more than tariffs. After the failure of the WTO's 1999 ministerial meeting in Seattle to agree to launch a new round of talks, trade negotiators finally settled on the talks in the November 2001 WTO meeting in Doha, Qatar. With the world still stunned by the September terrorist attacks, Zoellick successfully argued that failure to advance the trade agenda would be a boost to terrorists. But in the path from Doha to Cancun, trade negotiations have missed every major deadline -- meetings in the WTO headquarters in Doha have evolved into frequent bickering and the number of trade disputes mounts weekly. The problem confronting the Cancun meeting is that developing countries perceive the current ''development round'' as benefiting industrialized nations. Protesters charge that trade agreements answer to the needs of big corporations, intent on international deregulation and ignoring the needs of family farms, workers and environmental protection. The stance by the group of 20 countries ''really makes a huge difference in the balance of power in Cancun,'' said Adriano Campolina Soares, director of ActionAid Brazil. ''People think you in the United States are only willing to give peanuts on agricultural [concessions] but are charging an amazingly enormous price for that, which are the new issues,'' Campolina said in a Thursday conference call. Negotiators arrive in Cancun with progress stalled, specifically on the U.S.-backed plan to launch negotiations on ''new issues,'' including government procurement, competition, trade facilitation and a new investment agreement to limit governments' ability to place checks on trade and investment. In an effort to break the stalemate, the United States worked out a pharmaceutical agreement a week ago that will allow poor countries access to cheaper drugs to fight deadly diseases such as AIDS and malaria. But the problem of agricultural subsidies in developed countries and lower tariffs for manufactured products have proven to be intractable. Further complicating talks is the crisis in the U.S. manufacturing sector, where some 2.5 million jobs have been lost since President Bush took office. And as farm expert Daryll E. Ray, professor of agricultural economics at the University of Tennessee, pointed out, just eliminating agricultural subsidies in the United States and Europe will not lead to higher crop prices needed to improve farm economies everywhere. John Cavanagh, director of the Institute for Policy Studies, said the crisis in trade talks stems from the shift in world views on trade. "The WTO is the creation of a previous era when freer markets and freer trade were seen as the answer to most things.'' Return to home page
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