The Doha Round: Where do we stand?

Patrick Messerlin (1)

1 GEM - Groupe d'économie mondiale

As most of the high tariffs protect agricultural products, consumers tend to back off because they often support small farmers. But the term "agriculture" is a misnomer. The Doha negotiators deal with processed food roughly three times more often than with farm products per se. Moreover, the high "agricultural" tariffs in the developed countries are concentrated in processed food. For instance, the EU would cut its average tariff to 6-10 percent for farm products, but to 15-17 percent for food products produced by (often large) industrial firms or cooperatives. Cutting less the farm tariffs and more the food tariffs would be economically sound, politically feasible and honest.

Domaines: Economies et finances

Patrick Messerlin. The Doha Round: Where do we stand?. 2007. ⟨hal-00973099⟩