The State of the Doha Round

The state of the Doha Round is not good.  Consider the following.

From the U.S.:

"U.S. officials lashed out at India, Brazil and other large developing nations, saying that their proposal to exempt a broad range of industrial goods from tariff cuts could blow up continuing global trade negotiations."

From Brazil:

"Brazil on Wednesday criticized what it called an 'irrational' U.S. position in struggling global trade talks, a day after Washington said a liberalization pact was in peril because developing countries were refusing to open up their manufacturing markets."

From the WTO:

"The WTO is expected to break its own rules by not holding a ministerial conference in 2007 given the low chances of securing a global trade deal by the year's end, trade sources said Tuesday."

I have a hard time figuring out how much of this is just hard-line negotiating and how much is the result of a general lack of enthusiasm for reaching an agreement.