That dead horse of “we have to manage trade to free it” gets clubberized yet again:

Global commerce talks at the World Trade Organization collapsed Monday as top powers failed to agree on steps toward liberalizing trade in farm and manufactured goods.

Indian Trade Minister Kamal Nath said the talks had been suspended and added that “it could take anywhere from months to years,” to restart the negotiations. “This is a serious setback, a major setback,” said Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim.

That the WTO even exists is the real setback. But hey, let’s humor them for a moment: “why did the talks fail?”

EU trade chief Peter Mandelson blamed the failure on the United States. “The United States judged that it would be better for the process to be discontinued at this stage,” he said. “This action has led to the round being suspended.”

But U.S. officials said the fault lay with other countries. […] [U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns] blamed Brazil and India for being inflexible on their refusal to cut barriers to industrial imports and the EU for refusing to open up its farm markets. “There was just simply nothing there,” Johanns said.

Johanns said the United States indicated it could increase its offer to cut subsidies to American farmers, but he would not say whether the U.S. team had made a concrete proposal.

“You cut your subsidies first!” “No! You first!” “Kiss my ass, you cut yours or we’re not cutting ours!”

I’ve seen more civil behavior on elementary school playgrounds…

Anyone with half a brain who looks at how international trade has gone since the creation of the WTO would realize its real purpose is not to liberalize trade but to provide bickering grounds as cover for keeping it as restrained as it already was, while loking like they care. You don’t cut subsidies to humble american family farms corporatized agribusiness by having “talks” or trying to wrench concessions out of people who don’t have the luxury of leisure, you do it by cutting the f$@%ing subsidies. The reason we don’t is pure politics: despite the government interference being a sop to corporate socialism, when election season rolls around interest groups tug at heartstrings to make people think ADM is “the little guy”.