A Voice of the Developing Nations: Kamal Nath of India Insists WTO Must Establish Fair Trade, Not Free Trade
by Cecelia Fuentes
USA
One day in July, after picking up the New York Times, an article, “A Voice of Developing Nations Asks the West for Compromise on Trade” attracted my attention. My eye was caught less by the title of the article, a subject in which I am very much interested, but more by the photo accompanying the piece. Looking out from the page was the face of Kamal Nath, Minister of Commerce and Industry for India, a man the reporter was calling “the unofficial voice of the deadlocked World Trade Organization (WTO) talks,” adding that he had also been called “stubborn and irresponsible.”
To me the expression on his face spoke volumes; his eyes reflected the weariness of battle, but I thought I also saw a steely, determined conviction and resolve that the urgency of his message must be heeded.
The article said that Mr. Nath and Brazil’s foreign minister, Celso Amorim, had walked out of the latest round of WTO trade talks in a show of unity. A deadlock had occurred when the United States refused to consider a meaningful reduction of US agricultural subsidies.
