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The liberalisation in the context of the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) often appears polarised around two competing approaches.
The US and other main exporters tend to attribute the potential benefits from trade liberalisation almost exclusively to increased
market access via tariff cuts and tariff quotas, often downplayingthe role of domestic reform on trade.
Others argue that the debate should be exclusively about subsidies. Sometimes this is simply a defensive argument used to justify high
tariffs. But it is also used as an argument against any type of policy supporting agriculture in the developed world.
The argument for a more balanced approach, which has to be the basis of any successful negotiation, is often caught in the cross-fire
of the partial, yet powerful, “trade talk” of some of the major players. And what is lost in the process is the understanding that the benefits
from agricultural trade liberalisation will come from the cumulative effect of cuts in all three pillars of agricultural support (domestic
support, export subsidies and tariff protection).
The aim of this MAP is to look at the gap between the rhetoric and the reality, to see whether the 'trade talk' matches the facts – the
, 'trade walk'.
Building upon analysis presented in previous issues of MAP, which looked at the evolution and composition of trade for the main
players, in this issue the writers summarise the usual arguments of the 'trade talk' and try to get to the bottom of some misunderstandings
about the impact of policies on trade.
They look at the trade structure of some key players and its relevance for their negotiating position within the WTO. Finally they try to draw some conclusions about the relevance of all this for the assessment of the EU offer in DDA.
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