How much revenue could be mobilised The following examples illustrate the significant gains that governments in developing countries could make if they are allowed to maintain tariff levels and regulate their national economies in accordance with their own development objectives. ——If developing countries were not obligated to reduce their tariffs within the Doha round of trade talks, they would be able to save more than $63.4bn in existing annual government revenues.18 ——Of the many bilateral and regional free trade agreements in operation or under negotiation, reforming the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) alone could ensure that sub-Saharan African countries save an estimated $2.6bn each year.19
The battle for trade justice Despite the destructive social, political and environmental consequences of the procorporate model of economic globalisation, Northern governments continue to push free trade through the WTO and bilateral agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade accord (TPP), or the European Union’s most recent trade strategy known as ‘Trade, Growth and World Affairs’. As a result of this further liberalisation, trade tax revenues are set to continue to decline over the years ahead. Since the Doha Development Agenda (or Doha Round) was launched in 2001, supposedly to enhance the equitable participation of poorer countries in world trade, WTO negotiations have repeatedly broken down and still remain inconclusive. At the heart of the impasse in negotiations is the debate over tariff cuts, which are felt to exact extreme demands on developing countries while being unfairly balanced in favour of rich industrialised nations. This is particularly the case in the negotiations on industrial goods.20 Since most developing countries have quite high industrial tariffs, their tariffs will be cut far more steeply than the tariffs of developed countries, by up to 70% in some major developing countries compared to only around 25% for the industrialised nations.21 Developing countries will also be obliged to cut their agricultural tariffs by a further 36% if the Doha Round of talks is concluded, while the United States is trying to open up their service sectors even further to foreign ownership and competition.22 Various concessions are negotiated for developing countries under the principle of ‘Special and Differential Treatment’, which is meant to address historical and structural considerations and re-balance the inequitable WTO rules towards development concerns. However these measures, such as duty-free and quota-free access to developed country markets, are widely held by campaign groups as being insufficient to address the structural inequality of the trading system. The lack of agreement surrounding some of these concessions was a key reason why the Doha meeting in July 2008 collapsed, and remains a major sticking point today. By the end of 2011, WTO members openly acknowledged at a Ministerial Conference – the WTO’s highest decision-making body – that the talks had reached an impasse.23 Now in its eleventh year, the Doha Round has few cheerleaders left among its members and some advocate winding up Doha completely in order to take on new agendas.24
Protect import tariffs
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