John Adank is New Zealand's ambassador to the WTO and the chairman of the negotiating group on agriculture.  The comment highlighted above was made two weeks ago in Geneva.  Ambassador Adank continued by saying that, "As a consequence relevant members will have to engage very quickly in discussions to explore possible areas of convergence relating to what could be an outcome on cotton relating to the Bali Ministerial Conference."

Issues relating to cotton, especially those raised by the now famous Cotton Four - Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, and Mali - may inspire concern in some.  We are thinking particularly of those who believe it essential that the WTO produce some multilateral agreement in Bali.  The concern arises because the Cotton Four are strongly associated with the collapse of the WTO's 2003 ministerial meeting in Canc�n. 

Our own first reaction to the report of this new Cotton Four proposal was more hopeful.  Does this mean, we wondered, that those four countries see a Bali deal on the horizon and want to be part of it?  Or is it a stretch to read too much meaning into the timing of this initiative?  Some we have talked to say that it is a stretch.  The proposal is just late, they say.  Intriguing as it may be, that issue is unimportant.

Of the immediate questions, one that is important is this: Will the Cotton Four proposal undermine the drive for a Bali agreement?  Perhaps, but of the issues being debated in Geneva now, those surrounding cotton are probably not the most contentious.  In his remarks to the Trade Negotiations Committee yesterday, WTO Director-General Roberto Azev�do said that the technical assistance and capacity building sections of the Trade Facilitation agreement are "the biggest iceberg" in the path of the good ship Bali. 

After reading Amiti Sen's article in today's Business Line from The Hindu, we have to believe that food security issues are at the very least a close second in the iceberg department.  That article opens with this declaration: "India has decided to harden its stance in the World Trade Organization to protect its food subsidies against penalties."   The essence of the report is that, in the view of the Government of India, a time-limited "peace clause" isn't enough.  India will need something more open ended.

Whatever the role of cotton in determining the outcome of the current talks - and so the nature of the Bali Ministerial - there are things to be learned from this strand of the Doha saga.  We referred above to "Connecting the Cotton Dots."  We are not sure we can do that, connect them, that is.  What we can do is list some of them.

These three "dots" - quotations actually - need to be connected to make a coherent picture.

The Cotton Four Proposal.  The first is this summary of this new WTO proposal:

The U.S. Farm Bill.  We don't know whether there will be a new U.S. farm bill in the next few months or not.  There is a House bill.  There is a Senate bill. And the conference to mesh the two is underway.  A recent report on the farm bill conference, included this statement on cotton from Senator Saxby Chambliss:

Senator Chambliss, a Republican from Georgia, is a former chairman of the Senate agriculture committee and currently the ranking member.

The China Overhang.  The last dot, the last item in this series, is this lead from a Reuters story published earlier today:

We may be misreading the rhetoric, but our impression is that the Cotton Four proposals have been aimed primarily at the United States.  Why?  China and India are the biggest producers of cotton, and China is the biggest user.  Surely, China's policies in this area affect global cotton prices - including, of course, the prices confronting the Cotton Four - far more than any policy of the United States.

With his emphasis on Brazil's successful WTO case against the United States on cotton, the comments from Senator Chambliss implicitly underscore how complicated the cotton issues are.  And there are pieces to this puzzle we don't have.  We are not certain, for example, whether the Cotton Four already enjoy duty-free, quota-free access to the U.S. under the African Growth and Opportunity Act.  That's important, but it is not the main issue.  We think it would be very difficult for the United States - and probably unwise - to voluntarily take on new cotton related obligations in the middle of the farm bill conference.

All in all, you have probably cottoned on to the fact that we don't cotton to the Cotton Four proposal for Bali.  But that's not why we raise the issue here. 

If the WTO is to survive as a mechanism for cooperation among 159 countries - and specifically as a mechanism for cooperation between developed and developing countries, it needs to return to its roots.  It needs to return to trade.  Trade in policies is really not that different from trade in goods or services.  For any trade to succeed, it takes a willing seller and a willing buyer.  Selling rhetoric in Geneva for consumption at home will ultimately only unravel the institution.  Rather one needs to sell ideas to colleagues across the table who can see real advantages to buying them.