ARTICLE: “At the Trade Talks, Threats to Book Flights Home: Failure to agree could mean a delay until the end of the decade,” by James Kanter, New York Times, 1 July 2006, p. B3.

OP-ED: “Doha’s Last Chance: The ‘pain’ is really gain,” by Paul Wolfowitz, Wall Street Journal, 1-2 July 2006, p. A10.

ARTICLE: “French Presidential Hopefuls Play to Disaffection on Campain Trail,” by Leha Abboud and Christina Passariello, Wall Street Journal, 3 July 2006, p. A4.

ARTICLE: "Europeans Broach Idea Of Trade Pact With Russia," by Andrew E. Kramer, New York Times, 4 July 2006, p. C3.

Doha is failing, but then all of the previous rounds failed, failed, and then failed some more until some baseline consensus emerged and some deal was salvaged, moving the ball forward some measure. With each round, the gains are more profound but that much harder to achieve, because with each round the penetration of national economics by global economics gets more difficult, more personal, more passionate.

Delving into agriculture subsidies and protectionism is amazingly hard, because the long-held myths about “our food,” “our lands,” and “our farmers” are so strong. Hell, for centuries people bound themselves together mostly over food, so national pride here isn’t just an issue, it’s the identity in many ways.

The deal has been on the table for a while: Europe and U.S. both cut their ag subsidies to a range somewhere near that demanded by New Core powers led by Brazil. Current European offers are less than half the movement desired, while the U.S. offer is roughly two-thirds. We refuse to move anymore unless the Europeans do, and the Europeans are frozen by France’s rather solitary resistance.

So long as those two sides of the “triangle” don’t budge (the U.S. basically wearing the T-shirt that proclaims, “I’m with stupid!”), then the New Core powers (the third corner) don’t budge on their tariffs on manufactured goods.

So if you really want to target the biggest threat to global trade and globalization right now, you plan to invade France tomorrow.

But maybe time will heal that wound. France’s unemployment rate is the highest in Western Europe at almost 10 percent, with the number surpassing 20 percent for those under 25. But you saw what happened when France tried to liberalize its labor laws recently. Add to that the racial tensions over Muslims, and we’re talking one scared and increasingly scarred society.

The last article highlights the current front-runners from the center-right (Nicholas Sarkozy, considered very pro-American) and the left (socialist Segolene Royal). Both are showing some willingness to take on taboos. With any luck, France will fix France and we’ll see a Doha that happens in some significant way prior to 2010--the latest dark-scenario prediction.

Still, with any failure in global talks, there tends to be rising potential for bold bilaterals. And frankly, when the global economy is growing as fast as it is right now, bilats tend to dominate more. Countries are simply less willing to make the big bold deals on global negotiations unless they're feeling more pain. Still, you have to wonder how bad it must get for France to come to its senses.