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GUEST: Anuradha Mittal, founder and Executive Director, Oakland Institute

The Doha Round of World Trade Organization talks officially collapsed this Monday in Geneva at a meeting among representatives of the G6 countries. The G6 includes Australia, Brazil, the European Union, Japan, India and the United States. The primary reason is the US’s refusal to bring down subsidies for its farmers. Much time was spent discussing a key US demand – the lowering of import duties on agricultural as well as non-agricultural products. The US, meanwhile, targeted the EU’s failure to ease access to its agricultural market for foreign goods. EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson said Washington was asking “too much from others in exchange for doing too little themselves.” WTO Cheif, Pascal Lamy has told its 149 members states to stop playing the “blame game” over the collapse of WTO talks and instead focus on how to restart the Doha round.

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