If you join the countless droves of American college students who descend on Cancún, Mexico, during spring break this year, you may notice something odd about the place: it’s just like home. American franchise stores crowd the city’s brightly lit and highly sanitized hotel zone. Scoop for scoop, Häagen-Dazs ice cream costs more in Cancún than in New York City. And the names of the all-you-can-drink bars that you carouse in nightly are in English, sometimes with a “Señor” thrown in for good measure.

The face of the city is a small part of a larger tapestry. Only a few days ago, world trade talks collapsed in Cancún. Officials from the World Trade Organization (WTO), representatives from dozens of countries and activists from around the world gathered in one of the world’s most bizarre cities to address one issue: globalization — the process by which international trade, national economies, and both investors and labor worldwide are becoming more linked and interdependent.

The delegates to the trade talks came to discuss the openness of some countries to foreign investment, to set standards for anti-monopoly laws and to facilitate trade across borders all over the world. The protesters came to attract attention to issues they felt were being ignored: agricultural subsidies and the disastrous effect of WTO free-trade regulations on the world’s poor rural farmers, and the need for greater protections for environmental health and workers’ rights in developing countries.

Cancún is the ideal place for such a gathering. It is a city of surreal contrasts that illustrate the total mismanagement of globalization under the WTO. Designed in the 1970s by the Mexican government as a special economic zone, with tax concessions and relaxed regulations designed to attract enthusiastic foreign investment, Cancún was meant to be a pedestrians’ paradise with lush greenery, public spaces and good schools.

Instead, the demand for quick profits by investors, coupled with a corrupt local political system, meant that Cancún became a divided city. The hotel zone is a glittering tourist attraction designed to attract foreigners and their wallets; the shantytowns of residential Cancún house the impoverished workers who are the backbone of the local economy and as yet have seen very little tourist revenue invested back into their community.

Cancún represents the dilapidation of the current international economic system. The WTO, with 146 member nations, made the talks’ failure unavoidable because its unwieldy structure requires consensus among members. In the end, the interests of the United States, Western Europe and Japan frequently prevail over developing nations, usually through political influence rather than sound economic reasoning.

At the Cancún talks, the most contentious issue was farm subsidies. Developing nations wanted the West to reduce the enormous subsidies its governments give to farmers, threatening the market share of farmers in developing countries.

During the talks, President Bush phoned the governments of several developing nations such as Brazil, Colombia and Thailand, urging them to drop their opposition to subsidies or risk putting their own trade talks with Washington in jeopardy. It’s not hard to believe Colombia economist Jagdish Bhagwait (himself a free-trade advocate) when he says that managed globalization’s “ultimate objective [is] the capture, reshaping and distortion of the WTO in the image of American lobbying interests.”

The talks did not break down because the protesters succeeded in peacefully demonstrating inside the security perimeter meant to shield the delegates from the reality of Cancún. Nor did they break down because a South Korean farmer publicly killed himself to protest developed nations’ policies on agricultural subsidies. Not even the G21, a new coalition of developing countries (representing some 60 percent of the world’s rural farmers and workers) that was able to counterbalance the weight of the United States, European Union and Japan was responsible.

Instead, the talks broke down because the system itself is broken. The WTO has proven itself incapable of fair and effective economic management, as both the talks in Cancún and the city’s own condition demonstrate. It will remain that way so long as developed nations use international institutions as mere tools for their own industries to exploit cheap labor and acquire overwhelming market share in developing nations.

At the same time, the developed world’s debt increases even as it invests in the developing world. After Cancún, one step is clear: major exporters must adjust the imbalance between their consumption and their debt, particularly in the case of the United States.

Sounds unnecessary? Consider this: China now holds nearly $300 billion in U.S. government debt, more than any other nation. That means that a relatively poor nation helps to finance the wealthiest nation’s ability to purchase the poor nation’s products, which are manufactured in factories built by the wealthiest nation’s corporations. We buy more than we produce and borrow so that we can buy.

If that doesn’t blow your mind, visit “exotic” Cancún.

Rob Hunter ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in philosophy and political science.