UNITED NATIONS, September 20 -- Are the World Trade Organization powers “of the U.S. and Tonga, China and Vanuatu” the same? “Of course not,” WTO Director General Patrick Lamy told the Press on Monday at the UN. Inner City Press asked Lamy about powerful countries' domination of the WTO, and about export controls recently imposed by WTO member India on cotton and non WTO member Russia on wheat.
Lamy held off criticizing India, but said that “economists will tell you that import controls and export controls are similar animals” in their impacts. He projected that the WTO may adopt stronger export control restrictions, while still leaving the “flexibility” it allows on some import controls.
On the question of governance, Inner City Press asked Lamy to contrast the WTO with the IMF and the UN General Assembly, where he and the IMF's Dominique Strauss Khan had just delivered speeches at the Millennium Development Goals Summit. (DSK's speech, in English, avoided the issue of the IMF requiring Pakistan to pledge not to seek relief of its $500 million annual debt payments in exchange for $450 million post flood loan.)
Lamy acknowledged that the U.S. and China are power players in the WTO, but said that under the consensus system, the “weak can band together” and have power too.
As his example, he used the African Group's position on EU and US cotton subsidy restrictions. But what will India say about Lamy's criticism of their policies? Watch this site.
Footnotes: Lamy declined to comment on Japan's WTO case against Canada on Green Energy and solar panel subsidies, so Inner City Press didn't even try to ask about Vietnam's case against the US imposing anti-dumping penalties on that country's shrimp. But that too is interesting, post BP oil spill, as regards the MDGs...
