Last year, China overtook Japan as the country with the largest trade gap with the US by exporting six times more goods than it imported from the US market, taking advantage of a relatively open American market while only promising to further open its mainly closed market. This turn of events serves as a reminder that world trade still remains skewed and largely out of control . Despite the lip service often paid to free trade, efforts to open up global markets are stalling. That's because the industrialised countries are stuck in a domestic argument over whether trade should be a tool to save the environment and impose Northern labour standards on poor countries. That debate exploded, literally, in Seattle in 1999, when the WTO met to further open markets.
Most nations see such nontrade issues as disguised protectionism.
A fresh start was made at the Informal General Council meeting on March 8, to launch the preparatory process for the WTO ministerial meeting in November. With countries continuing to show differences on the scope and even necessity of such a round, the process is linked to progress on developing countries' demands to implement existing agreements in a way that benefits them and to progress in talks on services and agriculture. There are positive indications for the next ministerial meeting of the WTO, which could further reduce trade barriers and bring about greater market access to the developing countries and also boost trade in general. However, nontrade issues continue to dog the debate at every stage. Nor can they provide a consistent framework of enforceable rules and disciplines on subsidies or access across the board.