Thanks to the advocacy of a few pressure groups and many international institutions, there is now a near-universal agreement that developed country subsidies and protection in agriculture hurt the poorest, least developed countries. This is a telling example of how political correctness can lead to the acceptance of an economically incorrect proposition.

The rich country subsidies and protection seriously distort the global trading system and must therefore be eliminated. But it is also true that, barring a few exceptional cases such as cotton, the least developed countries will actually be hurt by this liberalisation. The biggest beneficiaries of the rich country cuts in farm subsidies will be the rich countries themselves, which bear the bulk of the cost of the associated distortions, followed by the Group of 20 middle-income or larger developing countries led by Brazil, which will emerge as the main exporters of the liberalised products. Unless we recognise this fact, we shall fail to convert the Doha framework deal reached by the World Trade Organisation this weekend into a just final agreement for the poorest countries.