We have now had a chance to read the two texts that have been put on the table. We provide links here- agriculture and NAMA.
Agriculture is not too bad - 10 times too many square brackets for a Ministerial meeting but officials could possibly whittle these down to 2 or 3 which would make a Ministerial outcome possible.
But non-agricultural market access is a shocker. It has gone backwards. No wonder the US and EU are spitting the dummy. They are expected to give on agriculture and they get nothing back in manufactures. There is no text on services (one is rumoured to be coming out Friday) but this will have even less liberalisation than NAMA.
The Hive will be putting the resource currently devoted to assisting the WTO process into assisting the McCain campaign. President McCain is the only short term hope for world trade.
