It's Time to Take Doha Out Back and Shoot It

Why the Doha Round of trade talks is faltering

The WTO's Doha Round once held the promise of increasing global welfare by hundreds of billions of dollars and lifting millions of the world's poor out of abject poverty. Today it's become little more than a travel subsidy program for international diplomats and a tired punchline for trade geeks like me. And it needs to finally be put out of its misery.

It pains me to say this. For the last few years, I've resisted my colleagues' time-of-death declarations, most recently pointing to the near-breakthrough at last year's "mini-ministerial" as evidence that the Doha Round, while imperfect, was salvageable.  But last week's Ministerial Meeting in Geneva has finally settled it for me: Doha is dead.

As a doornail.

Now, true believers will argue that WTO Members are still trying, and that the Geneva Ministerial meeting was never intended to include formal Doha Round negotiations, and they'd certainly be right on both counts.  But three things were made very clear during last week's meeting, and each alone provides a strong indication that the Doha Round is in trouble.  Combined, however, they make it clear that the negotiations are a lost cause, and it's time to pull the plug.