The distressing failure in Geneva yesterday, after some seven years of considerable effort, of the Doha round of world trade talks has profound repercussions for us all, but especially for farmers and producers in the developing world [see: ‘Dismay at collapse of trade talks’, BBC Online Business News, July 30; for analysis: ‘Trade talks’ failure ends Doha dreams’, BBC Online Business News, July 29; also: ‘Doha world trade talks collapse in blow to globalisation’, The Daily Telegraph, July 29].

Despite the obligatory optimistic phrases from World Trade Organisation (WTO) chief, Pascal Lamy, it is unlikely that the Doha talks can be restarted quickly as they were after the Cancun breakdown 5 years ago. The current politics are exhausted, and, with the world under increasing pressure from banking collapses and the rising cost of both food and fuel, the global economic environment is no longer conducive to finding a solution. Sadly, there is now a very real danger of a descent into protectionism, with each country wanting to maintain what it can present politically as the maximum ability to protect its own population in an increasingly volatile world.

The Pacific-South American Political Plate

Superficially, the Doha talks collapsed over just one item, number 18 on Pascal Lamy’s ‘to resolve’ list, which relates to what are called ‘special safeguard mechanisms’. These concern the ability of developing countries to impose temporary tariff barriers to control prices, or to block import surges, which are seen as an important insurance policy in tough times. Yet, in reality, the Good Ship ‘Free Trade’ foundered on much more, on larger and deeply embedded rocks, including an emerging and powerful new architecture in world politics.

Whilst the single biggest boulder blocking the stream of world trade remains the agricultural subsidies dished out by the EU and the US, of far more significance in the long run is the changing world order. This has been developing slowly for some time, and its basic architecture was exposed during last December’s Bali talks on climate change [see, for example: ‘The Tower Of Bali’, December 10, 2007]. But the true lineaments became glaringly obvious during the Geneva trade negotiations. Put simply, as the more dynamic developing countries have started to experience exponential economic growth, it is abundantly apparent that expedient political alliances between, for example, China, India, and Brazil are now at least as important as, if not more important than, their relationships with traditional Northern/Western countries.

In essence, what we may call the Pacific-South American Political Plate has become a powerful tectonic force in its own right, and there is no way that this expanding Plate will, in the future, sub-duct meekly beneath the European and North American Political Plates. From sovereign funds to world production, the countries involved are beginning to gain an upper hand, and they will play that hand according to their own concerns, not according to those of Europe and America.

Patronising And Ignored

Above all, these states will agree to nothing that halts their growth to prosperity. The very idea that they will follow Europe on climate change is risible. Indeed, I find it increasingly embarrassing, for example, when naive folk in the UK oppose a new coal-fired plant at Kingsnorth in Kent [see: ‘Coal Surfaces Again In The UK’, January 3] on the grounds that “it will be setting a bad example to China and India.” The patronising attitude behind such sentiments is shaming. China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Argentina, and the rest won’t even notice what we do in Kent. They couldn’t care less! We are no longer so important. Our days of neo-colonial posturing are long gone, and we had better pay heed to our own prosperity before we are swept aside on a tide of ineptitude, post-industrial lassitude, and innate arrogance.

The world has turned to the East, as the Beijing Olympics will demonstrate. We had better get used to it, and fast.

Africa

Yet, a genuine tragedy remains. As the trade talks in Geneva ground to their dispiriting halt, Africa, the poorest continent by far, was not even represented in the core circle of the discussions. It was marginalised. In the mighty movements of world politics, the African Plate is being squeezed by the internecine battle between the Pacific-South American Plate and the European/American Plates. Africa will be the biggest loser. There seems to be something Biblical about the dreadful potential consequences: “For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath” (Matthew: 13. 12).

World politics have truly entered an awesome phase; the world order will change, for good and for ill.

And, how increasingly tiny our UK politicians seem; Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Jack Straw, David Miliband, and Nick Clegg are being relegated to bit players on the stage of the newly-constructed Globe Theatre. At least Tony Blair had a major part to play.