Seven years bad luck

Pascal Lamy, the director general of the World Trade Organisation, confirmed the failure, which officials have blamed on China, India and the US failing to agree on import rules. The talks were launched in 2001 in Doha and were seen as providing a cornerstone for future global trade. EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said the result was “heartbreaking”. The main stumbling block was farm import rules, which allow countries to protect poor farmers by imposing a tariff on certain goods in the event of a drop in prices or a surge in imports. India, China and the US could not agree on the tariff threshold for such an event. Washington said that the “safeguard clause” protecting developing nations from unrestricted imports had been set too low. The talks have repeatedly collapsed as developed countries failed to agree with developing nations on terms of access to each others’ markets.