Dangerous activities

摘要

Six months ago, the prospects for freer global trade seemed a lone bright spot in a dark world. Two months after the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 142 countries agreed to launch a new round of multilateral trade negotiations at Doha, in Qatar. A month later, China, the world's most populous country, joined the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and with it the multilateral trading system. Even better was the fact that the United States and the European Union, the world's biggest traders, so often at loggerheads in the past, worked in close alliance at Doha. The two sides' trade supremos, America's Robert Zoellick and Europe's Pascal Lamy, were longstanding personal friends and fellow long-distance runners. Several simmering bilateral trade disputes, from bananas to Irish music, seemed to have been largely diffused. Transatlantic tensions, in short, appeared to have given way to a joint leadership that was at last pushing for freer trade.