Under the WTO, poor countries are required to stop subsidising their industrial goods, to prevent them from competing ‘unfairly’ with rich-country exports. As a result, many have no choice but to give up any hope of industrialisation and focus instead on agriculture. But through the US Farm Bill and the European Common Agricultural Policy, rich countries subsidise their own agricultural goods to the tune of $374 billion per year, then dump them on global markets for less than the cost of production, undercutting producers across the global South and driving down their market share.
