Why did the Doha Round stall last July?
There are lots of reasons. For one thing, in any negotiation, particularly toward the end, all parties get entrenched in positions and forget why they are there. Another reason is the changed circumstances of the post-Cold War world. During the Great Depression, the United States realized we needed to play a leadership role in the international trading system if we wanted to thrive. Even if we needed to give up on some things, it was worth it in the long term. We used to see trade in much more strategic terms, as a way to spread democracy. But when the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War ended, we didn’t need to act as leader of the Free World in quite the same way anymore, and we started to treat trade as just a financial transaction. We and the other countries need to get back to thinking about the greater picture. We talk about terrorism because it’s on our minds, but if you look at the list of threats to the global economy, income disparity within and between countries is one of the
