After Cancun: Possibilities for a New North-South Grand Bargain

Even more than the failed 1999 Seattle WTO ministerial meeting, events at the failed Cancun meeting underscore the deep divisions in the debate over globalization and trade policy. Moreover, Cancun also revealed significant change in understandings of these divisions. In 1999, the Seattle protesters were widely represented by the media as “protectionist” Luddites. In Cancun, there was little talk of the protesters as protectionist, and instead the protests were framed in terms of differences over the rules to govern the global trading system. Indeed, to the extent that protectionism was raised, it was in connection with the agricultural policies of the industrialized countries.