The Doha Development Round trade negotiations collapsed, once again, in July 2008; efforts to revive them in December of that year also failed. It was the second year in a row that efforts to re-start the talks that stalled in the summer of 2006 had faltered, and the fourth time since they were launched in 2001 that formal negotiations came to a halt. The architects of the World Trade Organization (WTO), founded in 1995, established a more comprehensive system of trade rules and dispute settlement that was designed to improve on its predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Yet the new and improved trading system under the WTO has thus far failed to deliver a major multilateral trade agreement. The WTO, or more precisely, the member countries of the WTO, have the “Doha Blues;” they can’t break the deadlock in the Doha Round. In the months following the 2006 debacle, World Trade Organization (WTO) Director-General Pascal Lamy liked to joke that the negotiations were merely on a “coffee break,” and could resume quickly if the parties agreed to it. Yet despite his efforts and those of the United States, European Union, Japan, India, Brazil, Australia and other countries to meet since then, a final package of agreements has remained out of reach. In the meantime, critical political deadlines have come and gone, in particular the United States Fast Track authority, needed to assure a direct up or down vote in the US Congress, and the 2008 US Presidential elections, which ended the administration under which the Doha Round had begun. The appointment of a new European Commission and general elections in India in 2009 also pointed to a further hiatus in the Doha Round negotiations.
While tough negotiations and stalled talks are nothing new in the WTO, or in its predecessor, the GATT, the Doha Round has been particularly frustrating. As was the case in many an earlier trade round deadlock, the main bone of contention in July 2008 was agricultural policy (although other issues also lurked in the background, unresolved). And yet there was a new twist this time. In earlier rounds, the United States and the European Union countries were the main combatants over agricultural trade issues. This time it was India, along with other developing countries, that declared the deal on the table to be unacceptable, signaling a new and more complicated process of reaching consensus on a global trade deal. The world economy had also become more complicated in recent years, as public anxiety over market globalization, terrorism, the environment, and the collapse in 2008 of global financial markets seemed to block the conclusion of a new global trade liberalization agreement. As the Doha Round stagnated, many countries eagerly sought bilateral and regional trade deals that could be negotiated relatively quickly, pursuing preferential rather than multilateral trade liberalization. Has the WTO run out of “juice,” the attractions of trade opportunities and prospects of trade-driven economic growth that previously brought countries together in eight rounds of multilateral trade negotiations since 1947? Or are countries still poised to conclude a multilateral agreement, once conditions in the world economy become more favorable? In other words, are the Doha Blues a funeral march for the WTO, or merely a sad song over a “lost love,” negotiations that may yet return someday soon?