Hong Kong Phooey

Mark Engler
December 14, 2005

Mark Engler, a writer based in New York City, is an analyst with Foreign Policy In Focus. He can be reached via the web site http://www.democracyuprising.com. Research assistance provided by Kate Griffiths.

Although much is at stake at the World Trade Organization Ministerial in Hong Kong this week, the success of the talks will largely hinge upon one issue: the willingness of the U.S., Japan and the European Union to live up to their own "free trade" rhetoric and to substantially cut their agricultural subsidies. By providing nearly $1 billion dollars a day in subsidies for their own farmers, the world's wealthiest countries—which regularly preach the virtues of open markets for poorer nations—are guilty of the rankest hypocrisy.

Be that as it may, a key question remains for critics of corporate globalization based both in the first world and in the global South: Is market access really the answer to poverty?