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Este blog trata basicamente de ideias, se possível inteligentes, para pessoas inteligentes. Ele também se ocupa de ideias aplicadas à política, em especial à política econômica. Ele constitui uma tentativa de manter um pensamento crítico e independente sobre livros, sobre questões culturais em geral, focando numa discussão bem informada sobre temas de relações internacionais e de política externa do Brasil. Para meus livros e ensaios ver o website: www.pralmeida.org. Para a maior parte de meus textos, ver minha página na plataforma Academia.edu, link: https://itamaraty.academia.edu/PauloRobertodeAlmeida;

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segunda-feira, 13 de maio de 2013

O declinio da OMC e o protecionismo brasileiro, segundo o Wall Street Journal


The Decline of the WTO
Editorial The Wall Street Journal, May 13, 2013

The trade body picks a Brazilian who helped to scuttle the Doha talks.

A depressing rule of international institutions is that whatever their founding intentions they inevitably evolve to serve themselves or their worst members more than their original cause. The latest example is the World Trade Organization, which began as a rule-making body to promote free trade and has drifted toward protectionism when it isn't useless.
That drift was illustrated last week with the election of Brazilian Roberto Azevedo as new WTO director-general. The 55-year-old career diplomat beat out Mexican economist Herminio Blanco, who had U.S. support and has a reputation as a more assertive free trader. Mr. Azevedo is by all accounts a charming diplomat who won because of support among developing nations.
Yet he won that support in large part by helping to scuttle the Doha round of free-trade talks. Mr. Azevedo was Brazil's chief Doha negotiator, and opposition to freer trade in manufacturing by Brazil, India, South Africa and other emerging economic powers made a worthwhile Doha deal impossible. It's now moribund.
The result has been that the WTO is increasingly a bystander as the world's economic powers ignore the global talks and pursue their own bilateral and regional trade pacts. The most important trade diplomacy today is taking place within the trans-Pacific and Europe-U.S. negotiations.
"I think we're getting a very sick patient. The WTO at this point in time is not doing well. It's almost like the next DG [director-general] is coming to the operating table with a very sick patient on it," Mr. Azevedo conceded in the lead up to the vote. No one doubts his diagnosis. The question is whether he's Dr. Kevorkian.
According to IMF data, Brazil is among the most protected economies in the Americas. If his goal is to spread his country's trade model, Mr. Azevedo will guarantee that the WTO will become even less relevant. Let's hope he tries to do a Nixon goes to China and overcome his previous Doha handiwork.

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