World Bank chief raps Obama administration on trade

Speaking in Geneva, World Bank president Robert Zoellick had some choice words for the Obama administration, all but accusing it of abdicating leadership on global trade talks: Robert Zoellick, a former U.S. trade negotiator under President George W. Bush, labeled as “excuses” Obama administration complaints that the so-called Doha round of global commerce talks are ...

By , a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies.

Speaking in Geneva, World Bank president Robert Zoellick had some choice words for the Obama administration, all but accusing it of abdicating leadership on global trade talks:

Speaking in Geneva, World Bank president Robert Zoellick had some choice words for the Obama administration, all but accusing it of abdicating leadership on global trade talks:

Robert Zoellick, a former U.S. trade negotiator under President George W. Bush, labeled as “excuses” Obama administration complaints that the so-called Doha round of global commerce talks are structurally flawed.

“I think the facts speak for themselves on whether you have excuses or leadership,” he told reporters at the World Trade Organization in Geneva.

Zoellick said the talks need American leadership if they are to produce a new free trade deal. When the negotiations to slash tariffs worldwide were launched in the Qatari capital in 2001, many predicted the result would add billions of dollars to the global economy.

The chances that a Democratic administration facing an election will make a significant effort to save the Doha Round would appear to be just about nil.

David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist

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