This entry is not about the state of play in the WTO negotiations here in Bali.  It is about a single presentation at yesterday's GBD event "Bringing Bali Home."  Still, a word on the negotiations is in order, and we will try to include a short update in any TTALK Quote filed from Bali.  This is the first.

Yesterday morning (December 4), the hall chatter included the notion that the whole thing - that is the hope for agreement on a Bali package - might come to end that afternoon.  It didn't.  Rather our impression at the end of the day was that the talks are likely to go to the end - sometime before mid-night on Friday, December 6 - or, at least, close to the end. If there were developments last night, we have not learned of them yet, but the headline in this morning's Jakarta Post is fairly telling:

Our impression is that the trade leaders in Congress have been focused more on the large regional negotiations - TPP in the Pacific and T-TIP in the Atlantic - than on the WTO.  That said, it is not clear that Congress would be content to allow a Bali package to be implemented without Congressional input.  But, of course, first there has to be a Bali package.  No package, no issue - at least not as far as U.S. legislation is concerned.