July Talks Collapse a Win for Movement

July Talks Collapse a win for movement

The collapse of the WTO talks should be seen clearly for what it is: A major win for the movement against neo-liberal economic policy. All around the globe people responded to these talks by pressuring their governments not to sign up to a bad deal. There was intense lobbying done by the unions in the global south countries that will be most affected by changes to manufactured products tariffs. Demonstrations were held in India, South Africa, the Philippines, as well the Netherlands. The Our World Is Not For Sale network coordinated a delegation at the talks to lobby in Geneva as well as feed information to the rest of the world. The global trade talks were met by global opposition.

It’s this opposition that meant that countries couldn’t agree to a bad deal. There were many comments made by ministers at the talks that they simply couldn’t take a bad deal back home. Globally, people are no longer accepting the results of neo-liberal policy on their lives and are ensuring that their governments are aware of this.

These collapsed talks were an important act of resistance against neo-liberal policy but we are now in the position of still being the same distance from having some form of trade justice. In this sense it could be easy to express regret that the WTO didn’t decide on an agreement that helped the poor and to lament the missed opportunity that these talks presented. To do this however assumes that a good deal for the global poor could be possible in such a forum. The WTO, with its mandate for increasing trade liberalisation, seems headed in one direction, and barring enormous change, one direction only.

This refusal to sign a bad agreement provides us now with the opportunity to move beyond what currently exists. More than just stopping the momentum of liberalisation, the break down of the talks provides a point to actually stop, think, and potentially change directions. This is now the challenge for the movement, what do we actually want to see? Not only can we rethink how trade could be done, the time is also ripe for reconceptualising what trade is. What would it take to have a global trading system in place that supported trade justice? How do we factor in historic disadvantage and privilege? What would a climate friendly trading system look like? All the answers are up for grabs.

While we grapple with these questions we’ll still have to continue the opposition to bilateral trade agreements. Australia and others have already indicated that they are focussing now on bilateral agreements whose outcomes often go beyond what is on the table at the WTO. Whilst this shift is just another forum to push for neo-liberal trade agreements, it’s also partly pursued because it’s the only option to fill the WTO gap.

As we take the time to celebrate our victory and begin the process of looking forward we still face the challenge of resisting more bad deals. Once again we are reminded that all across the world people are refusing these policies and that in our diverse ways we support each other in the work that we do.

Adam Wolfenden