Another massive potentiality for hammering out a fair deal to the developing countries is embedded in the fact that the Western farm subsidies are currently worth six times more than all global aid spending. If the production and export subsidies in the West were cut substantially it would create a level playing field for our farmers and exporters. Subsidisation is uneconomic, because it generates surpluses and causes export dumping thereby keeping the providing countries' inefficient farmers in business while the hard-working and barely subsisting peasantry in the LDCs are getting a raw deal. As though this is not enough of an unfair deal to agriculture in the developing world, the latter are kept under constant pressure by the rich countries to scale down their own subsidies. How is one to explain this particular variety of double standard?

Let's refresh our memory about the promise made in Doha by the rich countries in November, 2001 to slash the $300 billion in subsidies they pay each year to their farmers. Having botched their agricultural policies, they have now taken to denouncing developing countries for demanding what was promised at Doha. What a strange instance of self-righteousness taken to a hypocritical extreme! There is more to it; as for the developing countries' demand that rich countries scrap the handouts they give to their farmers, the United States and the European Union are saying that the proposition is politically impracticable. Don't they see the political or social cost the developing world is having to pay in terms of unstable conditions because of their continuing poverty situation? Even the pressure being put on the poorer countries to cut their subsidies entails an element of social or political cost.

The poor states comprise four-fifths of the WTO membership. They ought to have a major clout in the negotiation process. More because it is one-country-one-vote equation. There is no veto power for the USA, EU or Japan. Yet, the discriminatory world trade regime continues. This is not to say that all is well between the US, EU and Japan; for they have their trade wars. But while they trade concessions amongst themselves to strike a balance between contradictory demands, their reaction to the developing countries' trade needs appears to have been a different ball-game.

The strategy of the developing countries seems to be to break the Gordian Knot of the joint stance taken by the USA and EU on the question of greater marketing access to farm products from the developing world. But 'with the USA threatening to dismantle the multilateral trade framework, if negotiations do not progress, the EU would be hard-pressed to try and garner something substantial out of the Cancun multilateral forum in order to maintain balance with the US in trade matters.' Which way it will go is anybody's guess.

The global foreign investment and competition rules being insisted upon by the EU have been viewed by the developing countries with reservations. 'These could prevent them imposing stringent regulations on foreign multinationals' (The Guardian.

In the overall context, it is vital for the developing countries to unify their positions in order that their bargaining power is adequately enhanced in relation to the USA and EU. There has been a reference to 'a new militancy among the developing countries led by China, Brazil and India who are determined not to be bulldozed in the horse trading.' The interests of this G-20 and those of the majority LDCs should not collide in any way.