George Bush publicly committed to free markets around the world, yet under his tenure the level of agricultural subsidies almost doubled. Just over a year into Obama's administration the world watches, will he act on his pledges and pay more than lip service to the fair trade agenda?
Yesterday, at the close of Fairtrade fortnight, Brazil announced plans to "punish" fifty US products with import tarriffs. This move comes as part of a longterm cross-retaliation strategy against the States, whose agricultural subsidies favouring American cotton producers disadvantage around 10,000 of the world poorest farmers.
It follows an eight year struggle against America for it's illegal use of subsidies, which protect US cotton farmers from market fluctuations and give loan guarantees to international buyers of US cotton.
Last year the WTO ruled in favour of Brazil. The decision gave president Lula de Silva a mandate to impose $295m (£181m) of sanctions on US goods. However, the figure represented barely a tenth of the $2.7bn originally asked for.
At the eleventh session of the WTO Ministerial Conference in Geneva in December, rumors that US trade representative Ron Kirk demanded developing countries make deeper cuts into specific sectors and dismiss further safeguards for food security were reported in the Guardian. Brazil may have won the battle for cotton but poor nations still have far to go to win the war.
Meanwhile, the world's poorest farmers living in the West African cotton-producing provinces of Mali, Senegal and Benin, praying for big cuts in subsidies as part of a Doha Roundtable deal, have been left bereft by the collapse of negotions. A failure the American economist and Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, blames on the US.
The argument for truly fair trade is simple. Poverty causes despair which breeds political instability. If people are given nothing to live for, then they will find something to die for. As Stiglitz puts it, "we all suffer from the political instability to which despair gives rise". By being less selfish we all stand to benefit from a more peaceful and prosperous world.
