Hightower Lowdown

Most Americans never heard of the Doha Round --and no, it's not some sort of sweet donut.

Doha was another round of global-trade negotiations among corporate and governmental elites, intended to hang more NAFTA and WTO around our necks. But something unexpected happened at these closed door talks, named for the city in Qatar where the negotiations were held. The talks failed.

The collapse was not due, as most of the media reported, to a squabble over farm subsidies and agricultural markets. The reason was bigger (and simpler): such emerging economic powers as China, India, and Brazil are no longer cowed by America's high-strutting corporate might, no longer willing to succumb to rules rigged to benefit Wall Street and Wal-Mart.

This remarkable balking at the old corporate order is coming not from anger, but from strength--a situation the architects of the Western-friendly trading regimen never anticipated. Latin America, for example, is no longer a patsy--many of its economies are burgeoning and its leaders forward-looking. Then there's China, a rising giant in every economic segment, no longer relegated to the assembly of low-cost export products.

Leaders of these nations reject lectures from U.S. bankers and government officials, especially since unregulated mortgage speculation and Washington's massive bailouts of bankers exposed the corporate model of unfettered greed for what it is.

To regain our moral authority abroad, we must reclaim economic and social fairness here at home.