Somehow I doubt that the word “Fair Trade” is going to make it in the mainstream media’s vocabulary…

As thousands of trade diplomats meeting in Hong Kong this week struggle to break an impasse over a global trade agreement, some surprising new economic research threatens to throw a fresh damper on their efforts.

In a recently released book, the World Bank says that the potential benefits for the world’s poor of a far-reaching trade deal “are significantly lower” than it had previously thought.

The bank has long served as a source of authority for claims — by commentators, public officials and others — that the ongoing trade negotiations, known as the Doha round, could lift multitudes of people out of poverty. The scaling back of the bank’s projections is noteworthy, and comes at a sensitive time, as the Hong Kong meeting of the World Trade Organization remains stalled due to fierce disputes among the WTO’s 149 member nations.

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