Negotiators in Geneva are still struggling to conclude the Doha Round of multilateral trade talks at the World Trade Organization (WTO). However, after seven years of negotiations, many people - and especially many industrialists in Europe and the United States - are not convinced that the negotiations are worth the efforts being put into them. These doubts have been fueled by the modesty of recent estimates of the gains on the table in the negotiations on Non-Agricultural Market Access (NAMA). This policy brief argues that a completed Doha Round has more to offer to the U.S. and European private sector than cuts to already low applied industrial tariffs. The real gold mine in the Doha negotiations is the increased certainty that would flow from large cuts to bound tariff rates.
Walking a Tightrope: World Trade in Manufacturing and the Benefits of Binding