W ith the Doha trade round in danger of slipping from our grasp, the temptation is to grab hold of any opportunities for optimism. It has therefore become commonplace to assert that the food crisis, while a tragedy, is a shot in the arm for Doha. But of the three arguments that can be offered in support of such a pleasing proposition, only one passes muster; and even in this case, the argument is not a slam-dunk.

The first argument draws on the experience of the declaration of Doha itself. When this first World Trade Organisation round was launched after the September 11 tragedy in 2001, Robert Zoellick, the US trade representative, argued that this would be a resounding, western-values-affirming and unifying response to al-Qaeda and the terrorist onslaught. But Doha cannot be helped in this fashion: instead of our being able similarly to exploit the food crisis to push for trade and globalisation, many people and some governments wrongly blame the crisis itself on trade and globalisation.