Can Doha Still Deliver?

The Institute hosted a luncheon meeting June 19, 2006 to ask "Can Doha Still Deliver?" The central issue is whether the prospects for the Round are sufficiently favorable to justify completing the negotiations and declaring them to be successful. The answers to this question will clearly have major implications for US trade policy and the global trading system. Representatives of the three key sectors involved in the Doha talks made introductory remarks on the prospects in their components of the negotiations. Franklin Vargo, Vice President for International Economic Affairs at the National Association of Manufacturers, described the outlook for manufactured goods. Robert Vastine, President of the Coalition of Service Industries, presented the picture for services trade. Robert Thompson, the Gardner Chair in Agricultural Policy at the University of Illinois, depicted the prospects for agriculture. Senior fellow Jeffrey Schott concluded the meeting by drawing implications from these presentations for the overall outlook for Doha including scenarios of what might happen if the talks fail to achieve significant trade opportunities.