Chapter 11. Trade Talks Lead to Death of Doha and Birth of New WTO

11.1 Section Title

The World Trade Organization holds regular meetings, called “rounds,” in an attempt to reach agreement on trade issues. At a meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2015, the country representatives failed to reaffirm the goals of the Doha Round, which began in Doha, Qatar, in 2001. Instead, the representatives agreed on more specific trade issues, such as eliminating export subsidies in agriculture and reducing tariffs on information technology products.

The World Trade Organisation is facing the biggest shake-up of its agenda in a generation after its members in effect abandoned the long-stalled Doha round. For the first time since the round was launched amid great fanfare in 2001, the WTO’s 164 members, ending a conference in Nairobi at the weekend, declined to “reaffirm” Doha’s mandate. . . . The new line in Nairobi, said one senior trade official, amounted to “the death of Doha and the birth of a new WTO”.

It also marked a victory for the US and EU, who alongside other developed economies have argued that clinging to the long-stalled Doha negotiations was making the institution irrelevant in a changing global economy. For 14 years of its 20-year history its negotiations have been conducted—many would say frozen—under the Doha round banner, and since 2008 the view of many outside the WTO’s Geneva headquarters has been that Doha ought to be buried.

That frustration has led to a push for large regional and sectoral trade agreements. In October, the US administration concluded negotiations with Japan and 10 other economies on a vast new Pacific rim pact: the Trans-Pacific Partnership. It is also negotiating a similar agreement with the EU, and leading other sectoral talks in Geneva on the global trade in services and environmental goods.

That has also had an effect on the WTO. Under Mr. Azevêdo, the onus is on what is achievable and delivering smaller packages of reforms. In Nairobi, ministers agreed on the ban on agricultural export subsidies, and concluded long-running discussions on liberalising the global trade in IT [information technology] products. Those deals followed the conclusion in 2013 in Bali, Indonesia, of an agreement to remove red tape and speed the flow of goods through borders. . . .