Life as a trade negotiator can be frustrating for many reasons. One of the main sources for this frustration is the contrast between the often glacial pace of multilateral trade negotiations, and the lightning speed with which actual trade in the real world develops. I recently saw the classic Buster Keaton movie “Seven Chances”. This movie contains one of the most famous chase scenes in movie history . Keaton is trying to escape a large posse of wannabe brides (long story…), and at one stage he is running down a hill but, as he’s running, he accidentally sets a huge number of boulders in motion. As a result, he must desperately combine escaping his pursuers and avoiding the giant boulders at the same time. It’s a hilarious scene but, in some ways, it reminded me of work (the boulders, not the brides). We try to make progress in our negotiations within the WTO but, at the same time, we are being bombarded with all of these new issues, perspectives and developments. Since we don’t agree on how we should tackle them, we tend to avoid them instead. This strategy is often questioned – with good reason – by the business...
Written by Daniel Blockert