The Foreign Service Journal, October 2008

that would allow developing countries to protect sensitive products under certain conditions. But economist Carlos Perez del Castillo, Uruguay’s former permanent representative to the WTO and chair- man of its General Council from 2003 to 2004, insists in a Sept. 1 interview with InterPress Service ( www.ipsne ws.net/print.asp?idnews=43751 ) that that analysis is “oversimplified.” Other issues would have come up to derail the meeting if the mechanism had not — such as the levels of reduc- tions in cotton subsidies and the num- ber of special products tariff lines that would be eligible for zero cuts. Instead, he points to political con- siderations. India dug in its heels on food security and the SSM in a bid to strengthen the government’s political base, which now has only weak sup- port from the farm sector and faces elections within the year. China, al- ready under pressure from liberaliza- tion measures taken to gain WTO accession in 2001, was happy to back up India to avoid further measures that might threaten rural stability. The Bush administration was interest- ed in concluding the package, but only if it could be sold to Congress. All major parties have called for a resumption of talks, however, and WTO Director General Pascal Lamy declared on Aug. 22 that he is consid- ering getting senior officials to a table as early as mid-September to begin the effort to reach a compromise ( www.freshplaza.com/news_detail. asp?id=27632 ). But meaningful negotiations are unlikely to resume until the second half of 2009, Perez del Castillo says, when a new U.S. administration is in place, and elec- tions in India and Europe are over. Meanwhile, what are the implica- tions of the breakdown? C. Fred Bergsten, director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, D.C., writes in For- eign Affairs that the consequences are “grave” ( www.foreignaffairs.org/ e_newsltr/current.html ). With the Bush administration’s key multilateral trade initiative blocked, the next administration and Congress will face a dangerous policy vacuum. Further, he says, the India-China alliance bodes ill for other interna- tional negotiations, in particular on climate change, and there will be a surge of bilateral and regional agree- ments, further weakening the global trading system and discrediting the WTO. In an Aug. 3 feature in the New York Times ( www.nytimes.com ), “The World Beyond the Trade Pact Collapse,” correspondent David E. Sanger reports that the event signals more fundamental changes in the world, where countries like China and India will have much more clout at the bargaining table. “The era in which free trade is organized around rules set in the West — with develop- ing nations following along — defi- nitely appears over,” he says. Still, Sanger quotes Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow Adam Segal: “This doesn’t mean the breakdown of globalization, the end of trade, or [a descent] back into some pre-World War II kind of protection- ism. The Chinese just feel that they don’t have to put up with people lec- turing them anymore about how to manage their economy.” Sanger also cites Charlene Bar- shefsky, the U.S. trade representative in the Clinton administration, who has a different view: “The model of this kind of ‘global round’ is simply no longer viable. ... You have trade surg- ing around the world — in financial services, information technology, tele- communications — and everything gets held up for years because you are arguing about farm products.” Barshefsky favors a divergent ap- proach: the signing up of a limited number of big players in deals that are specific to the most important indus- tries. — Susan Brady Maitra, Senior Editor Grassroots Campaign for a Bigger, Bolder Peace Corps On Sept. 6, an unprecedented international conference call linked more than 2,000 former Peace Corps Volunteers gathered at 110 house par- ties in 44 American states and 16 for- eign countries. The event launched a campaign to reinvigorate the Corps and double its size and budget by 2011, the 50th anniversary of its founding ( www.MorePeaceCorps. org ). The grassroots campaign, designed as a response to Senators Obama and McCain’s calls to expand the Peace Corps and national service, is spon- sored by the National Peace Corps Association ( www.rpcv.org ) , a 90,000- member nonprofit organization made up of returned volunteers, former staff and supporters of the program. National Peace Corps Association President Kevin Quigley hosted the call, which featured a keynote talk by Harris Wofford, a former U.S. senator and one of the founders of the Peace Corps. The campaign aims to move the Peace Corps closer to the original vision of deploying 100,000 volunteers to work alongside host-country nation- als to create change and build good will, and simultaneously enrich the U.S. by returning a significant con- stituency of men and women familiar with foreign cultures and dedicated to service. Today the Peace Corps — a symbol of America at its best around the world — operates on a budget of $331 mil- lion, less than a tenth of a percent of the military budget. n — Susan Brady Maitra, Senior Editor 12 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / O C T O B E R 2 0 0 8 C Y B E R N O T E S u