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Indeed, the EU, as the worlds largest market, has the same opportunity that the US had after WWII to set up a trade system that gets enough countries to sign up that its worthwhile following its rules to get access to the aggregate marketplace.

It could be something as simple as a side agreement of what method of production restrictions all parties will in fact respect whether or not they are subject to successful challenge with countervailing duties permitted within the WTO.

After all, at its core, the WTO system works on a civil court style system - if a successful complaint is brought, the penalty is that all affected parties can impose countervailing duties. If there are certain circumstances where a large number of countries agree to refrain from imposing those countervailing duties, that de-claws the WTO.

Indeed, the G-77 could get an agreement on a non-toxic next round of the WTO, except within the bounds of that side agreement - and the right agreement could pull in a large swathe of sub-Saharan Africa and South America.

Get a large enough swathe of Sub-Saharan Africa and South America in that side agreement together with the EU, and it might be a tough decision for China to make whether join it and make for effective over-ride of the standing WTO interpretation of its rules that allows "no method of production regulation allowed" to override the dead letter public benefit provisions.

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

by BruceMcF (agila61 at netscape dot net) on Tue Dec 22nd, 2009 at 11:30:35 AM EST
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Just to add ... get a large enough swathe of Sub-Saharan Africa and the Mercosur countries, AND ASEAN, and it gets more interesting for Australia, South Africa, and India to make a deal, which is three of the dirty six. If that tips China in, its four of the dirty six, with only Russia and the US out in the cold.

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
by BruceMcF (agila61 at netscape dot net) on Wed Dec 23rd, 2009 at 12:24:53 PM EST
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If China is in, they can ration American fossil fuel imports, inasmuch as the Americans have to pay for said imports with hard currency, and China has the capability to make sure that the US has no hard currency.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Thu Dec 31st, 2009 at 02:20:24 AM EST
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