Thursday, March 02, 2006

US, Ukraine clinch WTO deal

That the US and Ukraine have concluded WTO accession negotiations is a bit of a shock. Ukraine hasn't passed all the legislation that would make it WTO friendly, but I guess the US feels that they are doing or have done enough to be able to conclude the negotiations.

I think it is a political calculation though rather than an instance of Ukraine meeting the requirements. The fact is that Ukraine has not done enough in areas like intellectual property to really satisfy US interests. A simple visit down to Petrivka market will disabuse anyone of that idea. Current run movies are available there much as they have always been and the prices are still cheap--unless something has happened in the past month or so since we were down there. No, I think the US is doing this right now to help prop up the Yuschenko government and that is not a bad thing. It is something the US government could do and it has done it and should be congratulated for it. Now Ukraine needs to step up and make it real.

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