World Trade Conflict: Has the Third World Been Cheated
World Trade Conflict: Has the Third World Been Cheated ?
The Conflict
Third world countries, having entered into free trade agreements with Western nations in the expectation of securing greater opportunities for their exporters, complain that these agreements are being ignored or circumvented in the West. Trade barriers, although reduced on paper, continue to protect important products such as textiles and agricultural products in the Western markets. The figures on developing nations' exports are not encouraging.
Political
•In the United States politicians hoping to keep the votes of American workers and farmers have turned against some of the WTO rules and oppose implementing some NAFTA agreements.
Economic
- Many Western countries claim that the problem is not market access but the productive capacity of the third world. In many cases developing countries export far less than they could because they do not have the supplies—not because of trade barriers.
- In the early 1980s a deep economic depression hit many developing countries, rendering them unable to pay their international debts. Western banks, under the coordination of the International Monetary Fund, began to carry out rescheduling of selected countries' debts, but in return developing countries were expected to abandon their radical posture on trade issues.
"There is going to be blood on the highway!" "NAFTA is a trade pact, it is not a suicide pact!" So said Representatives Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon) and David Obey (D-Wisconsin) respectively in response to proposals by President George W. Bush (2001-) to implement the rest of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) by permitting Mexican long-haul trucks into the entire lower-48 United States in stages. The fact that in signing NAFTA the United States had already promised to do this seven years ago made little difference to American politicians as they took steps in August 2001 to prevent the Department of Transportation from approving Mexican trucking company requests for greater access.
The politicians' opposition to granting the United States access to Mexican trucks is supported by James P. Hoffa, president of the American Teamsters, who represents tens of thousands of U.S. truckers. American truckers fear losing their jobs to low-cost Mexican trucking companies and have urged their union leaders to make their case. Hoffa plays on American fears of poorly maintained Mexican trucks plying the U.S. interstates. Relying on Transportation Department statistics that show that 36 percent of Mexican trucks inspected as they crossed into the United States in 1999 required repairs before being considered roadworthy, Hoffa warns that if tens of thousands of these trucks enter the United States, it will be a "recipe for disaster."
The Bush administration has sided with Mexican President Vicente Fox in arguing that these statistics are misleading. Currently, in spite of the NAFTA agreement, Mexican trucks are only allowed to travel 20 miles, or 32 kilometers, into the United States before unloading all their goods onto U.S. long-haul trucks—a very inefficient practice to be sure. Because the trucks from Mexico only travel short distances, trucking companies dispatch older vehicles that are bound to have more problems. In fact such short-haul trucks owned by American firms in Kansas City have a 45 percent failure rate—much worse than for Mexican trucks, according to the New York Times. It is argued that if Mexican firms could enter U.S. long-distance service, they would use newer and safer vehicles, as they do at home. At any rate the question is largely moot since only two firms in the country are prepared to take full advantage of an open market.
Such is the dilemma of many third world countries: they willingly enter into free trade agreements with Western nations in the expectation of securing greater opportunities for their exporters, only to find agreements are ignored or circumvented in the interest of protecting particular groups of voters and supporters.
The Problem from the Third World's Point of View
Before going farther, let us look carefully at the list of complaints being put forward by governments in the third world, also called the developing world. The crux of the matter lies in the failure of the West to meet expectations. For 60 years governments have agreed to alter policies that artificially raise the prices of imports so that locally manufactured goods are more competitive. Even though these trade barriers, such as tariffs (taxes on imports) and quotas (ceilings on the amount of a product that will be imported), are falling, there is no sign that third world exports to the West are rising as they should. Expectations were especially high coming off the most recent "round" of trade negotiations which ended in 1994, in which Western nations promised huge reductions in barriers to imports from third world countries. But the payoff has not materialized. The argument is ironically reminiscent of a longstanding complaint by the United States against Japan: the bottom line of all trade liberalization should be higher levels of trade.
What is happening, the third world countries say, is a subtle refinement of trade barriers, not their elimination. Certain products are being excluded with surgical precision. Although the overall tariff on all imports is only around five percent in developed countries, it is much higher for these products. Agricultural goods, for example, sometimes encounter tariffs in the hundreds of percent in the European Union and Japan, meaning that the price on the shelf of the imported good may be as much as four or five times what it is worth when it comes off the boat. Similar stories are heard with regard to third world exports of clothing, textiles, shoes, steel, and raw minerals. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD; sometimes known as the "rich countries' club") recently released a study showing that protection against agricultural imports was actually higher in eight out of ten wealthy countries in 1996 than it was in 1993, before those countries promised to lower barriers in the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations. This increase was due in part to the withdrawal of special allowances that permitted the poorest countries to sell their wares duty-free in the West. These so-called "preferences" were one of the things the third world bargained away in the hope of increasing overall access to foreign markets.
The net result is that the third world has found it harder, not easier, to sell its products to the West. Global agricultural exports by developing countries were only 30.7 percent of the total in 1996-97, a figure below its share of 31.7 percent in 1970-72, according to the World Trade Organization. In textiles there was an agreement to dismantle the 1974 Multi-Fiber Agreement (MFA), a treaty that had protected developed country markets from developing country textile exports, but this protection continues, particularly for finished goods (as opposed to raw materials—a phenomenon known as "tariff escalation"). The problem is particularly acute for the poorest of the poor countries, the so-called "Least Developed Countries." According to a joint study by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the British Commonwealth, least developed countries' exports account for only one-half of one percent of the world's total in 1999—less than in 1990.
Historical Background
How Did We Get Here?
The frustration over continued lack of access to Western markets is somewhat surprising, unless considered in context. After all, third world goods have been blocked for centuries—in fact, much of the point of colonialism was to find outlets for over-produced Western exports, not the other way around, according to Russian Communist leader Vladimir Lenin and other radical critics of imperialism. Even the notion of foreign aid was alien to governments until after World War II (1939-45). When the World Bank, now thought of as the primary multilateral development agency, was founded, its principal focus was on rebuilding war-ravaged Europe. U.S. President Harry S. Truman (1945-53) inaugurated Western foreign aid in 1949 by urging increased private investment and lending to developing countries to help them increase production at home and purchases of Western exports.
Free trade, however, was always a matter primarily between Western countries and did not include third world products. When the United States and Great Britain spearheaded negotiations to begin removing trade barriers during the 1940s, although an invitation was issued to developing nations from Latin America to attend, it was just an afterthought; they played no significant role for many years. Naturally, most countries in Africa and Asia were still colonies and did not exist as politically independent entities and therefore played no part at all in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT; first signed in 1947, a forum to promote free trade between member states by regulating tariffs and providing means to resolve trade disputes) and other trade negotiating bodies. Tariffs were reduced for products rich nations sold to each other, such as refrigerators, automobiles, and ships. Agricultural and other primary products, as well as low-tech manufactured goods like clothing, were exempt from free trade deals. The United States took its agricultural price supports off the table in the mid-1950s, as did Europe a few years later. Unfortunately this meant that the types of goods developing countries were most likely to sell fell outside the expanding sphere of unregulated trade.
It was not until the 1960s that the ever-increasing number of newly independent developing countries began to take a stand on trade. Under the intellectual leadership of Raul Prebisch, a Brazilian economist, they demanded a one-sided bargain from the West. It involved granting developing countries free access to Western markets while at the same time erecting or preserving trade barriers against Western exports, particularly in the area of commodities, or primary products. The developing countries moved to create a new United Nations agency—the UN Conference on Trade and Development, where they would have the majority and therefore set the agenda and the rules.
UNCTAD represented a challenge to the GATT and Western domination of trade law. In an effort to co-opt third world countries, Western nations decided to concede many of their demands, on condition that the developing nations join the GATT, where Western nations held much more influence. In the hope of eventually being fully integrated into the global marketplace, poor countries agreed and the notion of non-reciprocal trade was born. Essentially, the West agreed to give "something for nothing" in the short term, offering relatively free access to their markets to third world exports.
The arrangement was dubbed the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) in 1968. Each Western country was free put the principles in place on a case-by-case basis, however. The result was a patchwork of complex rules that, in the end, mostly helped countries in the third world that needed it least. South Korea, Taiwan, Argentina, and Brazil, for example, had the industrial capacity to produce a large number of products for sale to the West and were successful in securing a presence in American and European markets. Countries like Bangladesh, Malawi, and Guyana, on the other hand, found it extremely difficult to produce enough goods for export, according to OECD1997. When they did, these were more often than not agricultural products that were still covered by high tariffs and low quotas. The same was true for textiles, which fell under the 1974 Multi-Fiber Agreement.
Debts in Developing Nations
Even the surge of influence the third world experienced following the Arab oil embargo in 1973-74 and the resulting leap in petroleum prices proved short-lived. Developing countries were unable to secure Western support for such initiatives as price supports for commodities, cartels (producer-controlled mechanisms for limiting production) for such commodities as bauxite and coffee, or increases in foreign aid and technical assistance. This stemmed in large part from the Western decision to eschew the UN and retreat to more hospitable international institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the GATT.
The situation changed dramatically in the early 1980s when, following years of growth fueled in part by foreign borrowing and temporarily high commodity prices, a deep economic depression swept through the third world. Oil prices dropped from over $35 per barrel of crude to less than $10, while interest rates for short-term private borrowing increased to nearly 20 percent. Mexico, Brazil, and Venezuela—all oil exporters—found themselves unable to repay the quarterly interest payments and essentially defaulted on their foreign loans. Gradually, and for a variety of reasons, the economic troubles spread until almost every developing country was deep in arrears in loan repayments.
Since the debts were generally dollar-denominated and owed to Western banks, the developing countries could not simply print more local currency to get themselves out of trouble, as so many Western nations had done before them. Rather, they had to either sell more goods to earn the funds, attract more foreign investment capital, or ask for more loans to repay the old ones (this is called "rescheduling"). At any rate, nothing could be done without Western cooperation, and so the bargaining strategies changed almost overnight. Although there were attempts at organizing a coalition of debtors, these were quickly squelched as Western banks, under the coordination of the International Monetary Fund, began to carry out rescheduling of selected countries' debts. These deals came with significant strings, however: developing countries were expected to abandon their radical posture on trade and other economic issues. They were required to lower trade barriers to Western goods, make foreign investment safer and more convenient, reduce subsidies to local producers, and eliminate price supports for basic goods, among other things. At the global level, any semblance of third world solidarity evaporated.
In time the third world liberalized, although not without considerable protest, given the horrendous toll on ordinary citizens these policies imposed. The West softened the blow slightly by creating a few preferential trade agreements (the Caribbean Basin Initiative, a series of acts starting in 1983 to promote economic development in Central America and the Caribbean islands through special treatment in the American market is perhaps the best known in the United States). But by the end of the 1980s, much of the Generalized System of Preferences was gone, either through concessions by developing countries or by the "graduation" of the more successful ones. South Korea and Taiwan were no longer eligible for special treatment in 1989. Third world countries were left to compete in the global marketplace as best they could in the face of ever-intensifying "globalization."
The Uruguay Round of the Gatt
The proposal to draft a new set of trade rules under the rubric of the Uruguay Round of the GATT seemed to offer some promise to developing countries. They eagerly maneuvered to put their issues on the table. Thus negotiations began in the mid-1980s on trade in tropical goods, agriculture, textiles, and so forth. Added to the agenda was a proposal to strengthen and make the system fairer for settling disagreements among trading partners. Developing countries hoped that this addition would allow them to successfully charge Western powers with violating GATT's rules when the need arose in the future.
On paper the Uruguay Round was quite successful, from a developing country's point of view. The MFA was slated for elimination in an eight-year period beginning in 1995 when the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing went into effect. Tariffs against agricultural goods were to be reduced and quotas to be converted into more visible tariffs, to be reduced over time as well. Agricultural price supports in the West were to be reduced over time. In the end the developing countries succeeded in obtaining almost all of their negotiating objectives.
The devil, however, has been in the details of implementation. Because the language is vague and contains some loopholes, many Western countries are moving very slowly to put in place the agreement, while at the same time they are arguing that no violation has occurred. On the other hand some countries are simply flouting the treaty and ignoring its provisions, much to the consternation of the developing world. In his summary of the most recent UNCTAD meeting in Bangkok, Thailand, in February 2000, Secretary-General Rubens Ricupero said, "What are [the diplomats] asking for?… They want the massive barriers to be dismantled in relation to trade in agriculture, textiles, and clothing and in the areas where tariff peaks and escalation still prevail, even after the implementation of the Uruguay Round Agreements."
An official summary of the meeting declared that many speakers from developing nations had opened their markets and strengthened their organizations and economies to better compete with industrialized countries, though without the benefit of equal liberalization. The summary also pointed out that implementation of agreements made during the Uruguay Round were uneven, and policy makers from developed countries were perceived to be bending under pressure for domestic protectionism.
Still others feel the inequity of the system is not inadvertent, but rather the result of a deliberate strategy on the part of the West to economically weaken the third world and bring about its virtual "recolonization."
The Problem from the West's Point of View
In general most developed countries believe that their trade barriers are very low, both in comparison to years past and in comparison to developing countries' barriers. They are quick to point out, for example, that in general tariffs are extremely low—below five percent on average—and coming down.
The Uruguay Round, in particular, was a victory for developing countries, according to the developed nations. In the Agreement on Agriculture that came from the talks, most developed countries dropped tariffs by a significant margin. The European Union, for example, completely eliminated tariffs on coffee beans, cocoa beans, jute yarn, and paper. Canada eliminated tariffs on tea, fresh dried manioc, and paper products. Tariffs on other agricultural goods were cut by sizable amounts. Likewise, the commitment to phase out the Multi-Fiber Agreement will eventually result in much easier market access for developing countries.
The results of the Uruguay Round have been dramatic for some countries. Burkina Faso, for example, exports all of its goods duty-free worldwide, along with the Sudan, Djibouti, Lesotho, Guinea-Bissau, and several other of the poorest countries. Whereas almost half of Bangladesh's exports faced tariffs, now 98.62 percent of its exports are duty-free.
Developed countries have also maintained several preferential schemes whereby selected developing countries can export their goods duty-free. For example, nearly all imports from LDCs in Australia are duty-free, covered by the GSP. Likewise in Austria and Canada. This is true in spite of the fact that many developing countries have instituted new trade barriers of their own. For example, Argentina and several of the wealthier countries have aggressively pursued anti-dumping actions to block products they say are being sold below cost. Dumping violates World Trade Organization, or WTO, rules but is very tempting since it can dramatically increase a product's market share, even though it hurts profits in the short-term. The irony of this concern is that anti-dumping litigation is a tried-and-true practice in the West.
For most Western countries, the bottom line is that the problem is not market access, by and large, but the productive capacity of the third world. In many cases developing countries export far less than they could. Even before the Uruguay Round, for example, less than half the GSP quotas were filled, meaning that twice as many exports could have been imported duty-free, except that there was no more supply from the developing world.
The problem, then, stems primarily from the poverty of third world economies and their inability to mass-produce goods for the overseas market. As we will see, this calls for a very different set of remedies than the developing countries have suggested.
This said, there are dissenting voices among the rich countries of the world. The Europeans have been more sensitive to the concerns raised by the developing world and have acknowledged that some third world exports still face high trade barriers. According to a recent European study, "more than 50 percent of [LDC] exports face a tariff barrier in the United States, Japan and Canada"—much worse than the 5 percent level in Europe. "If Canada, Japan and the United States follow the lead of the European Union, LDC exports will increase by approximately three percent." Europeans have been particularly sympathetic to the plight of the poorest nations and have even offered to eliminate all trade barriers on their exports, except where weapons and arms are concerned.
Opposition to the WTO
The focus of this debate ultimately centers on whether the WTO rules should be better designed and better enforced. This is not as esoteric as it may seem. Since late 1999, whenever the WTO has held large-scale meetings or, for that matter, whenever the powerful countries have gathered to discuss economic policy, they have been greeted by crowds of demonstrators. These protesters oppose the effects of "globalization" on all the weak and vulnerable. They charge the WTO and other economic organizations with numerous crimes and misdemeanors. For example, among its "Top 10 Reasons to Oppose the World Trade Organization," the Global Exchange network Web site includes that the WTO: "only serves the interests of multinational corporations"; "tramples over labor and human rights"; "is destroying the environment"; "is killing people"; "undermines local development and penalizes poor countries"; "is increasing inequality"; and "undermines national sovereignty."
At meetings in Seattle, Quebec City, Washington, DC, Rome, and elsewhere, tens of thousands of demonstrators have demanded access to the microphone in order to persuade diplomats to dramatically alter trading rules to allow governments to promote progressive policies through trade law. They argue, for example, that the policies that isolated the South African regime economically in the 1980s and led to the end of apartheid would be more difficult to put in place today since they would be viewed as WTO-illegal.
A common demand of demonstrators is for better protection of workers in what they call "sweatshops" in the developing world. In a famous story retold in Life magazine, Sidney Schanberg related an experience he had when he encountered children making soccer balls in Pakistan: "As I traveled, I witnessed conditions more appalling than [the last]—as children as young as six bought from their parents for as little as $15, sold and resold like furniture, branded, beaten, blinded as punishment for wanting to go home, rendered speechless by the trauma of their enslavement."
Demonstrators blamed the WTO's rules that liberate the forces of the market without providing any protections against its excesses, as in the case of the soccer ball makers in Pakistan. Interestingly enough, however, demonstrators soon discovered they were among the only voices defending the rights of workers in poor nations. As it turns out, third world governments are just as often sympathetic to the concerns of Western businesses that seek maximum latitude to set low wages. Thus, most developing countries have sought to prevent the imposition of new labor standards for fear of chasing away foreign investors. After all, part of the reason companies like Nike and Mattel set up facilities or subcontract to companies in the developing world is precisely because there is less government "interference" in the way the workplace is managed.
Indonesia has suppressed unions for years, for example, in order to prevent wages from rising as a result of strikes and union protests. It has also received a vast proportion of contracts from Western corporations until the late 1990s when its currency—and eventually its whole economy—collapsed. In other words depriving workers of Western-style rights is part of what gives developing countries a competitive edge. Mexico considers using local labor standards as a litmus test for blocking imports a barrier to free trade.
The same is true of environmental standards, which developing countries usually believe are another form of trade barrier. When the United
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States imposed restrictions on imports of tuna in order to protect dolphins, Mexico and several other Latin American countries took it to court. The United States was found to have violated the free-trade rules of the WTO and was forced to work out another rule that would be mutually advantageous. On the other hand, U.S. rules to protect sea-turtles, although found to have violated WTO rules by one tribunal, were later approved, much to the dismay of developing countries.
Demonstrators and developing country governments, however, agree that Western governments are unfair in the application of their free trade rules and both groups argue for better market access and preferential treatment. They also agree that the free trade rules of the WTO tend to diminish the autonomy and sovereignty of developing countries.
Efforts at Taking a New Approach
Western governments argue that the problem is not so much with market access questions. Rather they argue in favor of opening further all types of markets—to tear down the last remaining barriers to trade. This includes not only the types of barriers discussed earlier, but also the new barriers developing countries have erected. In order to accomplish all this, a new round of trade negotiations is needed.
In a recent joint statement by the key trade officials for the European Union and the United States quoted by Pascal Lamy and Robert Zoellick in the Washington Post, we find the following argument: A key goal of the cooperation between the United States and the European Union is to launch a new series of trade negotiations and overcome any lingering "stain" from the Seattle talks. "Why? Because we have a shared responsibility for the international economic system. Developing countries cannot expect to fare as well as the United States and the EU in a system of unbridled bilateralism. They would do much better under a multilateral trade round. Indeed, a new round is perhaps one of the most useful contributions we could make to the alleviation of global poverty, providing it is really a round for both growth and development."
The wording of the comment is rather unnerving, since it seems to imply a threat: the alternative to participating in a new multilateral round may be the collapse of the system and a reversion to country-by-country deals. Interestingly enough this threat may not be so idle. The United States has made clear that it intends to pursue not only a new multilateral negotiating round, but will also engage in bilateral talks with Laos, Jordan, and the Balkan states with strategic purposes in mind. Japan and Europe are also engaged in numerous bilateral deals, separate and apart from the WTO. The strategy has the effect of dividing the third world as some countries seek preferential deals at the expense of collective bargaining. The threat is also significant—it is certainly true that most developing countries could not hope to increase global market access through the means of bilateral deals alone.
Perhaps the most encouraging proposal, particularly for the poorest states, is the "Everything But Arms" initiative by the EU for LDCs. The idea is simple: all products exported to Europe from the LDCs would enter duty-free, unless they are weapons. This would mean the removal of escalating tariffs on products like chocolate and starch. Unfortunately, since its original promulgation in 2000, many governments in Europe have begun adding caveats and exceptions to the list, particularly in steel, textiles, and agriculture—the very areas that are most critical to the third world.
Recent History and the Future
Once or twice each year, trade ministers from across the world gather for WTO policy meetings. The central question for the next few meetings will be whether to begin a new negotiating round. The United States and the European Union are determined to proceed, while the least developed countries have gone on record in opposition. In July 2001 trade ministers from these poorest countries declared that any new round would "have to take into account the inability of LDCs to participate effectively in negotiations on a broad agenda and implement new obligations due to the well-known limited capacity of the LDCs" (as quoted in the Marrakesh Declaration 2001) and that at any rate it was too soon to address such questions as rules on investment, environment, competition policy, and so forth.
But even before a new round can begin, U.S. negotiators will have to receive authority from Congress to sign any package deals—so-called "fast track" authority. At this point it is an open question whether Congress will be forthcoming. The Mexican truck situation has left a bad taste in the mouths of many legislators. Even Republicans, who would normally be expected to support President Bush, are advancing a farm bill that its supporters acknowledge provides new subsidies to farmers that are likely higher than permitted in WTO rules.
Many conflicting pressures will be brought to bear on the negotiators at the November 2001 meetings in Doha, Qatar. Western diplomats must weigh the need to protect essential industries and constituencies against foreign goods, while at the same time offering attractive enough inducements to secure developing country acceptance of a new round. The West may be in conflict with itself, however, as the Europeans brace for the introduction of the new currency—the euro—and the inevitable disruption this will cause. Likewise, the developing world is likely to lack the unity required to resist Western initiatives, as has been the case in the past. A likely scenario is that a new round may go ahead, but with a narrow agenda. It will bear watching, since the economic survival of billions hangs in the balance.
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Kendall W. Stiles
Chronology
1947 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) comes into effect.
1949 The United States initiates the first foreign aid program.
1964 The first United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) convenes.
1968 The Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) is established under GATT.
1973 The OPEC Oil crisis begins.
1974 Developing countries at the UN issue a Declaration and Action Program on the Establishment of a New International Economic Order.
1974 The Multi-Fiber Agreement (MFA) is signed.
1979 The GSP is expanded.
1982 Third world debt crisis begins.
1989 The Berlin Wall is taken down, symbolizing the end of the Cold War.
1989 South Korea and Taiwan "graduate" from theU.S. GSP list.
1994 The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is signed by Mexico, Canada, and the United States.
1995 The Uruguay Round of the GATT is completed, and the World Trade Organization is created.
1997 The Asian financial crisis begins.
1999 The Seattle ministerial meetings of the WTO occur amid protest.
2000 The Bangkok meeting of UNCTAD takes place.
2001 The Doha ministerial meeting of the WTO is planned.
Key Terms
Agreement on Agriculture: a treaty to lower barriers to agricultural trade negotiated under the auspices of the GATT.
Agreement on Textiles and Clothing: a treaty to lower barriers to textile trade negotiated under the auspices of the GATT.
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade; GATT: an international organization that establishes rules in international trade.
Globalization: a term that describes the increasing interdependence of nations and societies in the context of global trade and travel.
Generalized System of Preferences; GSP: an arrangement that allows developed countries to import goods from developing countries with lower trade barriers than those offered by developing countries to developed country exports.
Tariff: a tax on imports.
Tariff escalation: the tendency for tariffs on raw materials to be lower than those on finished goods made from these raw materials.
Market access: the ability of foreign countries to sell their products to another country.
Multi-Fiber Agreement; MFA: a treaty that protects developed country markets from developing country textile exports.
Non-tariff barriers: policies, such as quotas or labor standards, that limit the number of imported goods.
Quota: numerical limit on an imported good.
Subsidy: payment by governments to producers to allow them to sell goods at low prices and still make a profit.
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development; UNCTAD: an international organization that promotes third world development through trade and aid.
World Trade Organization; WTO: successor to the GATT.
Tariff Escalation Increase by Percentage
Manioc, roots, and tubers | |||
Tariffs Applied by | Fresh, dried | Flour, meal | Starches |
European Union | 56.20% | 12.70% | 64.30% |
Japan | 1.40 | 18.60 | 500.60 |
Hides and skins | |||
Tariffs Applied by | Raw material | Leather | Articles* |
European Union | 0.00% | 3.40% | 4.20% |
Japan | 0.00 | 4.10 | 9.60 |
* Excluding shoes |
LDC Access to DC Markets
Nations Applying Tariffs | Portion of LDC Exports Facing Tariffs | Portion of LDC Exports Facing Tariffs over 5% |
Canada | 54.60% | 54.40% |
European Union | 3.10 | 3.10 |
Japan | 51.10 | 22.20 |
United States | 48.70 | 47.00 |