Food Security

Implementation of a global deal to promote trade through increased regulatory transparency and reform of customs procedures is stalled. The deadlock began in July, when India blocked formal adoption of the Trade Facilitation Agreement, which WTO members had agreed to in Bali at the end of ...

Bravo to Senators Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Chris Coons (D-Del.) for trying to free international food aid from the 1950s-era practices that cost lives and waste taxpayer dollars. 

I am still combing through the 1,000 page, $1 trillion farm bill to figure out what it means for US development and trade policy. Here’s my quick take. 

The Bali package included agreements to facilitate trade by modernizing customs procedures and to ensure that minimum access for agricultural imports subject to quotas is achieved in practice. On food security, there was, at the end, a resolution of the dispute over a “peace clause”...