If Doha is not dead, its pulse is barely detectable. The collapse yesterday of overnight talks between six big players has made a timely and meaningful agreement about trade liberalisation impossibly unlikely. The stumbling block was a disagreement over agricultural protection: the US was pressing for big reductions in tariff barriers, but others, fearing a flood of subsidised food, were unwilling to accept this unless the US reduced its farm subsidies. The deeper cause is that the few who enjoy trade protection have proved far more politically effective than the majority who stand to gain from liberalisation and often do not realise it. If there is a future for free trade, that will have to change.

It is true that reports of the death of trade rounds are sometimes exaggerated. The Uruguay round looked beyond help in December 1990 but it was later resurrected. It is hard to imagine a similar miracle now.