New trade deal by 'end of year'

[dipsydoodle]

Source: BBC News - 18.51 GMT

World leaders have reportedly decided to aim for a new agreement on global free-trade - within weeks.

Brazil's foreign minister, Celso Amorim said the G20 financial summit would set a tight target date for a deal.

Mr Amorim said the G20 leaders wanted to reach agreement on the talks "by the end of the year".

The Doha round of trade talks was launched in 2001 but broke down because of disputes, largely between developing and industrialised nations

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7731139.stm

[Veritas_et_Aequitas]

1. Is this good or bad?

Seriously.

[dipsydoodle]

2. I posted it as a matter of fact

Personally I'd say it's bad - those deals always screw those which can least afford such deals.

[The2ndWheel]

4. It's the same

Further consolidation of economics into a global scale system. The same, in one form or another, as it's been for thousands of years.

[Robbien]

5. Good for poorer nations. Not so good for global elites

In these individual trade agreements the US keeps setting up, the poorer nation has little or no bargaining power so the deal ends up very lopsided in favor of big business interests.

A global trade agreement which resolves the issue of privatization, natural resources and labor issue would go a long way in rebalancing the inequities the individual trade agreements established.

[jwirr]

3. I can definitely see some of the things that this could change for the

better but I am also afraid of what could go wrong. For instance corporations need to have their power reigned in so that nations can place regulations on them. Nations also need to be able to protect their own industries from foreign competition - especially if we are to build a world in which self-sustainability is the goal. I am thinking about the African countries where my foster child lives and his future. We do not help him by letting our multi-national corporations pollute his waters and air or destroy the food producers in his country. I think those issues are vital and must be dealt with now.

[ananda]

6. r e i n e d in

sp

[jwirr]

10. Sorry.

[fascisthunter]

7. "free-trade"... what an attractive shiny name

...for something that has decimated our economy! The wealthiest most productive nation in the World has become a debtor nation with very little left in manufacturing, since this "free-trade" was shoved down our throats. It has made the already rich , very wealthy, while it has destroyed our middle-class. That wealthy minority sure is speshul...

Votes truly only count so much...

[Peace Patriot]

8. Depends on who counts the votes--as Josef Stalin allegedly pointed out. nt

[fascisthunter]

9. aint it the truth

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

12. most of the damage blamed on free trade was done in the 70's

and that was not the shifting of jobs overseas or to Mexico - it was the shifting of jobs from the Northeast and Upper-midwest to the South.

[LiberalLovinLug]

11. Good...Bad...it depends

It depends on how many fair labor and environmental provisions it contains. The North America Free Trade Agreement has little or none of these protections for workers or the planet. I think these are the reasons that Obama wants to re-open it.

Big Business loves the kind of FTA that have been done so far which allows them free reign over poorer nations where they dump pollutants into rivers and hire locals for dirt poor wages. If international corporations were required to pay workers fair wages and have proper emission controls not as many would ship jobs overseas. Of course foreign workers would also get a benefit with higher wages and/or better working conditions.

BTW, I wonder if this development is why Bushco. is pushing to get the Columbian free trade deal locked up (with little or no protections for workers or environment of course), which would trump any new global deal.