COMMENTARY
I have participated in some of the preparatory work for international ... multilateral ... agreements, and it rapidly becomes very technical and burdened with detail. The detail is included because there are powerful interests in play, and the detail makes it possible for specific issues to be included or excluded.

Clearly there is a role for trade ... but the rules for trade need to be fair as well as 'called' free. I cannot say whether I agree with the author of this letter (Jagdish bhagwati) or not since the issues are very complex. In general, I would argue that trade has been good for corporate investors, but not so good for workers. In high wage countries jobs have disappeared and in low wage countries, working conditions and wage rates stay very low. Corporate profits and investor gains have been strong, while wage workers have been remunerated less. This is what free trade and its rules seems to deliver ... and I would argue that a better outcome should be the goal. That means, I think, something rather different than will emerge from the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations
Peter Burgess

An Open Letter to President Obama on Doha

Mr. Barack Obama
President of the United States
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:

As the window of opportunity for a robust deal on Doha Round is closing, with the United States now about to enter into an election mode, we make an appeal for Presidential leadership in the United States to put Doha into closure along with the three Free Trade Agreements that finally seem close to passage by bipartisan agreement.

The fear of the labour unions that trade with the poor countries produces poor in the rich countries is mistaken. The demand of the business lobbies that want ever more concessions from others is excessive. The contention of some experts that the gains from Doha are minuscule is flawed in neglecting the costs of the failure of Doha and the ensuing damage to the WTO. The retribution by a protectionist public is greatly exaggerated: many jobs today depend on both exports and imports and the polls reflect that.

President Obama: you have not failed to step up to the plate on issues like the repeal of the Don’t Ask and Don’t Tell policy in the armed forces. You can do so again to carry Doha past the finish line. You were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for the multilateralism that you promised. You can earn it with leadership on Doha, a multilateral venture par excellence.

Jagdish Bhagwati, Columbia University and CFR
Claude Barfield, AEI
Herminio Blanco, Former Secretary of Commerce and Industry, Mexico
Hugh Corbet, Cordell Hull Institute, Washington DC
W. Max Corden, University of Melbourne, Australia
Donald R. Davis, Columbia University
Alan Deardorff, Michigan University, Ann Arbor
Vivek Dehejia, Carleton University, Canada
Barry Desker, NTU and Former Ambassador to Indonesia, Singapore
Elias Dinopoulos, University of Florida
Peter Drysdale, Australian National University
Sebastian Edwards, UCLA
Frederick Erixon, ECIPE, Brussels
Simon Evenett, St. Gallen, Switzerland
Robert Feenstra, UC Davis
Ronald Findlay, Columbia University
K.C. Fung, UCSC
Ross Garnaut, University of Melbourne, Australia
Jan Willem Gunning, VU University of Amsterdam
Tatsuo Hatta, Osaka University and GRIPS
Mats Hellström, Former Minister of Foreign Trade, Sweden
Hal Hill, Australian National University
Douglas Irwin, Dartmouth College
Peter Kleen, ECIPE, Brussels
Pravin Krishna, SAIS and Johns Hopkins University
Anne Krueger, SAIS
Hosuk Lee-Makiyama, ECIPE, Brussels
Phil Levy, AEI
Rodney Ludema, Georgetown University
Petros Mavroidis, Columbia University and Neuchatel, Switzerland
Patrick Messerlin, Sciences Po, France
Devashish Mitra, Syracuse University
Piyusha Mutreja, Syracuse University
Leif Pagrotsky, Sveriges Riksbank and Former Minister of Foreign Trade, Sweden
Arvind Panagariya, Columbia University and Brookings Institution
Lourenco Paz, Syracuse University
Raymond Riezman, University of Iowa
Tom Prusa, Rutgers University
Peter Rosendorff, New York University
Razeen Sally, ECIPE, Brussels
André Sapir, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels
Robert Stern, Michigan University and UC Berkeley
Subidey Togan, Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey
Tony Venables, Oxford University
Shang-Jin Wei, Columbia Business School
David Weinstein, Columbia University
John Whalley, University of Western Ontario, Canada
Kar-yiu Wong, University of Washington