I’m thinking, not much. For decades we have sent nearly $3 trillion dollars in aid around the world that was supposed to be used for development but instead has been funneled into the personal checking accounts of dictators. The GDP per capita of the continent has actually fallen in this time, and the countries that we rank as being the most likely to succeed are actually experiencing negative growth. Every feel-good strategy that has been employed up to this point has failed miserable, causing more pain and suffering than there was before. Nice job, Bono.

Now, the one chance at opening trade and increasing the livelihoods of both the West and Africa alike has just collapsed under the sheer stupidity of the negotiators pushing it. After numerous recussitations, the Doha Round is dead.

The article deals mainly with negotiations between the United States, the European Union, Brazil, and India. The former two want the latter to open up their markets while still being able to maintain subsidies for their agricultural sector. Guess what? Brazil and India want the exact same thing. That doesn’t sound like free trade and competitive markets to me. It sounds like each trying to one-up the other. It also notes that because such a multilateral free trade agreement isn’t working out under the auspices of the WTO, the United States has gone ahead and done bilateral negotiations with several countries. The problem with this is that the larger country — the United States or the EU — is negotiating with a smaller one, and the smaller cannot expect the larger to give up its huge farm subsidies in exchange for an agreement. This obviously isn’t free trade at all; in fact, it looks more like the seeds for future trade conflicts.

Africa is the region that gets hurt the worse though. Most people in Africa are small-scale farmers who need to get their produce to some kind of market, yet with huge farm subsidies in the United States and European Union, there is no way that they can compete with the artificially lowered prices. What the United States has at the moment is legislation called the African Growth and Opportunity Act, meant to open up U.S. markets to African-made goods. However, to put it lightly, the whole thing is a crock of shit.

To quote a previous article on the subject:

Although imports from AGOA countries has increased 88% to $26.6 billion in 2004 alone, 87% of this total was petroleum products from just five out of 37 eligible countries, meaning that total imports only equalled $3.5 billion. Most of these leftovers are made up of minerals, metals, and textiles. Out of some 6000 eligible products, only these are exported in any significant quantity.

If anyone is actually serious about free trade and development, there has to be an equal playing ground for everyone. This means that no country can have significant tariffs or government earmarked agricultural subsidies that promote an unfair advantage for any one country’s goods. That’s economic warfare plain and simple, whether its the United States or Brazil doing it.

Aid is no longer going to cut it, because delivery and implementation is too hard to account for. Billions go to AK-47s instead of new roads and schools. Trade on the other hand is managed by individuals looking for better lives. Only, up to this very moment, it has always been apparent that no party has the political will to make this happen, because they really don’t care to.