Global Liberalization: Trade-Offs Across Borders (Interview) (Interview‪)‬

I: To start off, we would like to discuss the Doha Round trade talks and their failure to date to produce consensus on major issues, including tariff and agricultural policies. Do you think that this failure indicates a significant shift in momentum behind trade liberalization and globalization? B: Doha is indeed at risk. But it has not failed--and, in fact, many leaders are trying to rescue it from collapse. At die 2011 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, where Peter Sutherland and I, co-chairs of a High-Level Independent Expert Group on Trade appointed by the British, German, Indonesian, and Turkish governments, were at a Panel discussing an Interim Report focused solely on Doha, though our mandate goes beyond trade liberalization to address issues such as preventing protectionism and analyzing needed changes in the World Trade Organization (WTO) to improve its efficiency in overseeing world trade. Aside from the two co-chairs, the Panel had among its members British Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Indonesian President Susilo Yudhoyono, and WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy.