WTO Director-General Roberto Azevêdo made a number of clear, straightforward statements in his remarks yesterday to the WTO's General Council.  Today's featured quote was one of them.  And virtually all them underscored the same idea: the hope of a Bali package is dead.  There will be nothing to show for the last three months of intense negotiations under Mr. Azevêdo's leadership, to say nothing of the last 12 years of pursuing the Doha Development Agenda.

Geographically, global trade talks - or the lack of them - are focused on two places, Geneva and Bali.  In his remarks yesterday, Mr. Azevêdo dealt with both.   As for the negotiations in Geneva, they are over. 

And as for Bali, the Director-General seemed to say - did say - that there would be no negotiations there either.  Here is some of that language:

At this point, a Bali failure would seem to be about as buttoned up as a submarine at a thousand feet.  And yet there are bubbles.  What does one make of statements like this?:

Regarding the cost of failure, there were no mitigating words in Mr. Azevêdo's assessment.  "Failure in Bali will have grave consequences for the multilateral trading system," he said.  Yet that too can be read as a bubble of hope.  Why?  Because astute leaders - and Roberto Azevêdo is an astute leader - do find ways to mitigate failures.   As a rule, they hold them up unvarnished only when they think that doing so might help to avert them.

All of that said, no one we know is expecting a miracle in Bali, and neither are we.  And yet ...

As for "deal or no deal," we have nothing more to add and won't for another week.   But there are two more points that do need to be made before we close this entry.  Some things the Director-General said yesterday need no exegesis, indeed, should not have one.  Exhibit A:

And there were things, he said, which, while they demonstrated his leadership, also demonstrated the very human nature of negotiations.  Exhibit A in that category:

How well the Geneva process works (or doesn't work) was a strong theme in the process that led to the selection of Mr. Azevêdo as the new Director-General.  To the extent that the WTO - the staff, the accredited ambassadors etc. - are a team, he has made them a better one.  But, of course, in the final analysis, WTO negotiations are only marginally about the performance of the Geneva team.  Mainly, they are about the calculations of sovereign states, and our world is not a team.