[stephenjohnbanker]

"The question now is whether the WTO can work at all. If not, the trade game now is every man for himself.

And China, with its undervalued currency, will keep winning."

There is our "free trade"

[A. Pole]

In the rich countries, tariffs on manufactures now average just 3 per cent, yet tariffs on farm produce average 22 per cent. On some, they are astronomical: 94 per cent on sugar to the US, 153 per cent on beef to Europe, and 693 per cent on wheat to Japan.
[...]
Removing all trade barriers, say Anderson, Martin and Dominique van der Mensbrugghe, would lift the world's output by $US287 billion ($A385 billion), as resources move from high-cost producers to low-cost producers, allowing far more to be produced.

The grain production in Japan will be eliminated and in case of any disruption of trade, Japanese people will STARVE!

[Last Dakotan]

The WTO's members are not flocking to the free trade banner.

Blame the Asian Merchantilists.

[hedgetrimmer]

but unless ministers can bridge the chasm on farm tariffs, free movement of persons that too could be lost.

Anything to wipe out our borders and interfere with the sovereign governance of our country is AOK with the "free traders".

[hedgetrimmer]

WTO talks are supposed to be a "development round," and migration has an enormous role to play both in raising global living standards and reducing global income disparities.

Should the guest worker solution be applied in Europe and North America in the hope of avoiding the social frictions that come with permanent settlement? Or is dependence on such a foreign underclass without political rights morally corrosive, a modern form of bonded labor, of non-chattel slavery?

The "free traders" at the WTO push 'migration' at the Doha round. The "free traders" refuse to enforce sovereign borders because it creates a "barrier to trade". The "free traders" are casting the world into chaos.

[neutrino]

I look forward to the day when free traitin' will be discarded upon the rubbish heap of history; and the advocates of that misguided policy will be accorded the disrespect they've earned.

[FFIGHTER]

Just as suspected. Numerous calls for government intervention, regulation and control of the economy. Price controls, subsidies, rationing, limited choices, increased taxes just a few of the gifts of protectionism. When you look at the economy is the absence of the science of economics, that leaves only emotions as your guide.