The Doha round of multi-lateral trade talks being held under the auspices of the World Trade Organization (more formally known at the WTO as the "Doha Development Agenda") were formally 
suspended this week amid much acrimony among the negotiators and finger pointing as to who was to blame for the impasse. Some commentators are suggesting that the failure of these negotiations signals a greater failure with respect to multilateral free trade agreements generally. This pessimism is captured in the headline on the WTO's own news site -- "Talks Suspended. 'Today there are only losers'."
The Doha round (named for the city in Qatar where the negotiations received their formal mandate in November 2001) were intended in large part to include under-developed nations, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, in the economic bounty of globalization. Unfortunately, the talks were doomed to failure due in large part to the juxtaposition of two opposing economic realities.
On the one hand, most under-developed economies such as the ones sought to be energized through this process tend to be predominantly agrarian. As a result, their principle source of exports that 
can generate development dollars from international trade is agricultural products. On the other hand, agriculture is the one industry on which even the most developed countries seem absolutely unwilling to loosen their grip. I imagine that this has to do with an unspoken realization that whatever else one might think, if all hell breaks loose and global chaos ensues, the one area in which a country must endeavor to be as self-sufficient as possible is the ability to feed its population.
Of course the two entities with the greatest agricultural fail-safe capabilities to protect are the U.S. and the E.U. -- and whatever vestiges of nationalism they have each forgone in the areas of 
technology, basic industry or energy resources, they continue to guard jealously their agri-business. The U.S. supports its agri-business through a wealth of government "farm" subsidies. The E.U. protects its agri-business through a variety of market access limitations.
In order for developing agrarian-based countries to stand a chance to be competitive and gain any possibility of success through enhanced international trade, they need both the U.S. and the E.U. to forgo what would be considered anti-competitive measures in any other segment of global trade. But both developed regions cling tenaciously to their respective agri-business advantages, each refusing to blink before the other and each blaming the other for being anti-competitive and unreasonable. And in the end, there are only losers.
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