ABSTRACT
This chapter offers an institutionally contextualized analysis of the Doha negotiations by describing the competing-yet-complementary options available to the United States and showing how the institutional arrangements in different venues affected the political influence of the competing parties and the negotiation outcomes. The US had to give up not only in the Doha negotiations, but also in some of its legal initiations (Section 301 against South Africa), and in few of the regional negotiations (Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), Southern African Customs Union (SACU)). The US uses bilateral in order to get more than it can in the WTO (e.g., Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (TRIPS)-plus conditions), without undermining the World Trade Organisation (WTO) as such. Negotiations soon focused on the three most contentious issues: intellectual property rights, agricultural subsidies, and the Singapore issues. The US would pursue an investment liberalization agenda similar to the highly criticized provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
