Background

Trade policy has become a controversial and hot-button issue in recent years, even as the global economy has become increasingly more integrated, national economies have become more dependent on one another, and trade volumes have expanded. Yet the real controversy has not been over trade itself, but rather over US trade policy, which determines the winners and losers. While inequality and the concentration of wealth have increased in the US and developing countries alike, those benefiting from US trade policy are often concentrated among the economic elite here and abroad.

Oxfam believes trade policy should seek to expand opportunities for poor people to gain a greater share of the benefits of trade. To that end, Oxfam is working to support a successful, pro-development conclusion of the World Trade Organization's (WTO) Doha Round, take action to provide full duty-free access to products from all least developed countries (LDCs), and stop the US from pursuing bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) with far-reaching rules that undermine development.

WTO negotiations

To date, the WTO negotiations have fallen far short of the pro-development reform that was originally promised when the Doha Development Agenda was launched nine years ago. The US and other rich countries have offered largely illusory reforms while demanding in return real and risky concessions from developing countries, such as greater market openings without adequate flexibility and safeguards. A deal that delivers on development goals will require real cuts and tighter discipline when it comes to US and other rich country spending on agricultural subsidies; it must also allow developing countries to have proper flexibilities to promote rural livelihoods and adequate space to develop their industries.

Trade preference programs

For more than three decades, the US has extended preferential market access to imports from developing countries as a means of stimulating economic growth and poverty reduction. Oxfam campaigns for strengthening and expanding existing programs, and we are also supporting new legislation to provide duty-free entry for products from all of the world's poorest countries. Currently, poor countries in Asia, such as Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Afghanistan, are not covered in preference programs other than the Generalized System of Preferences, which grants only minimum benefits.

FTAs

The US has turned to bilateral and regional FTAs as a means of forging new markets for US goods and services in the absence of a new multilateral trade deal. Yet such FTAs in the Americas, Africa, and Asia could prove devastating for small-scale farmers, indigenous people, and women. These agreements are typically written to benefit industrialized farms and pharmaceutical corporations, with little consideration given to development needs in poor countries with high levels of poverty and inequality. Meanwhile, many poor people in these countries depend on agriculture for their livelihoods as well as affordable medicines to treat illnesses, particularly those like HIV/AIDS for which new medicines can be critical. Oxfam is working to defeat trade agreements that threaten people's rights to livelihoods, local development, and access to medicines.