Wealthy nations must abandon their "double standard" and commit to wiping out farm subsidies and other trade barriers if it wants developing countries to stick with world trade talks, Nobel economics laureate Joseph Stiglitz said Monday.
Developing countries, especially democracies, cannot sign on to trade agreements that are as unfair as those negotiated in the past, Stiglitz said.
"We treat goods produced in the United States differently than goods produced abroad," Stiglitz said. "We have a double standard."
"It's clear who has the higher moral ground," he said.
Avoiding trade barriers is beneficial in general, said Stiglitz, who won the Nobel Prize for economics in 2001.
Steel tariffs imposed by the United States to protect the domestic industry only protected a few jobs, he said but caused larger job losses among industries that consume steel.
Stiglitz was among many experts and officials deriding what they described as Western hypocrisy and forecasting a bleak outcome for World Trade Organization talks that begin Tuesday in Hong Kong.
As a part of the so-called "Doha round" trade talks, developing nations want the European Union, U.S. and other wealthy nations to reduce their tariffs on agricultural imports and government farm subsidies, trade barriers that block poor nations' agricultural exports.
In previous trade agreements, the bargain was for rich countries to lift tariffs on farm products and other imports from the developing world in exchange for concessions by developing countries. But such promises have not been fulfilled.
"The U.S. essentially doubled agricultural subsidies in 2001 when the understanding was they would be reduced," he noted.
"There's been a history of bargaining in bad faith," he said.
Eliminating subsidies for cotton growers and other farmers in the United States and EU would benefit poor countries because prices for their exports would rise, helping the poorest members of their societies, Stiglitz said.
"It is in the interest of the advanced developed countires to see the developing countries grow, to see them do well," said Stiglitz. "Giving up agricultural subsidies makes us better off."Associated Press
