Liberal Voice WTO

Author: Ben Gore

If you came up with a list of the 10 worst countries in which to have a World Trade Organization negotiation over agriculture, Mexico would have to be at the top. Mexico is a wonderful snapshot of what "agricultural liberalization" has usually meant. In 1992, in preparation for their entry into the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Mexican government phased out the majority of their protections for farmers. The United States increased export subsidies for its producers. Crops, especially corn, flooded south at excessively low prices. The result was a fantastic "optimization" of the Mexican economy. Small farmers "left" their land (after going bankrupt and selling previously communal land to large corporations) and moved to the cities and to the newly formed maquiladora zone to take low wage sweatshop jobs near the border.

The only people who thought that was nifty were American agribusiness interests like Archer Daniels Midland. And Levis jeans. The day NAFTA went into effect, while this process was just picking up speed, an armed rebellion broke out in the southern state of Chiapas. Since then there have been varying levels of unrest and for very good reason. The oligarchic heads of the Mexican state had negotiated away the hereditary and chosen occupation of a tremendous number of their population forcing them into demeaning and dangerous jobs.

The United States' rather myopic negotiating team went to Cancun with the mind to do this to the rest of the world. To end poverty and reduce hunger, of course. But it was hard for the negotiators from the global south to ignore the reality of the situation at hand when there were thousands of representatives of the displaced campesino class there. They were also painfully aware of the fact that the United States continues to subsidize farm exports in violation of NAFTA. They did the only sensible thing and formed a negotiating block: the Group of 21 (or sometimes 22), drew in non-governmental advocates and put forth their own proposals.

The European Union and United States would have none of it and so on Sunday the G21 walked. Negotiations on investment rules (which would let corporations directly sue foreign governments over non-traditional trade barriers) were torpedoed along with agreements on intellectual property.

But what about the hungry of the world? They need low cost, genetically modified crops to prosper! Right. What we really need is a movement towards subsistence on a national and regional level. In the South this means rejecting the export led development model, which hasn't worked for anyone. It is too weak of a way to set up an economy. Instead of opening local businesses and local farmers to competition from highly advanced countries, governments need to shelter their domestic industry and invest heavily in developing the backbone industries including food production. This means more farm subsidies, not less.

The notion that foreign farmers need open United States markets to succeed is ridiculous. The vast majority of countries are not agricultural exporters. For those countries whose farmers would benefit, like Brazil, we can certainly make a bilateral agreement.

For those countries that do not export, lowering tariffs would mean the virtual elimination of their domestic production. This is not a secure or dignified position to be in and will only lead to more hunger. Basic economic institutions must be domestically formed and domestically run. This means security for the country and dignity for its people.

In the North we have the strongest of moral obligations to reduce our consumption drastically. Eventually our wants will become so great that it will be impossible to provide for them at all. Long before that point we will be compelled into wars to secure our lifestyle. They've already begun. Today, our dependency on imports forces us to send our corporate emissaries around the world setting up sweatshops and bribing governments. In especially important cases involving especially important resources we send in our camouflaged emissaries.This is immoral and dangerous (other people do not like being bullied).

The WTO has the potential, through its consensus process, to empower poor countries to assert their rights. But since the United States and European Union will never allow it, we cannot. The WTO was designed to be a subtle tool of hegemony. But in the age of preemptive war, subtlety is unnecessary. The WTO is over. On to Bush.