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The future of freer trade is an uncertain thing. Talks at last week's World Trade Organization meeting in Cancun, Mexico, collapsed when delegates from developing countries walked out. They accused rich countries of stonewalling on steep cuts in farm subsidies that are devastating Third World economies.

Yet despite this setback, leaders of an emerging coalition of developing countries, led by Brazil and including China and India, saw signs of hope. Why? Because, for once, the world's poor stood together against the rich.

It's not certain they can stick together, but for the moment they have the attention of their wealthy trading partners. The question is whether the will exists to find some grounds for agreement.

Near-term prospects may be slim, given the approach of a US presidential election. President Bush -- who signed a farm bill last year that raised subsidies for mostly affluent farmers beyond all reason -- needs farm state votes. He's unlikely to offer more than lip service to the need to stop using US taxpayers' money to drive Third World farmers to the wall.

Indeed, Washington has offered to make deep cuts in subsidies only if Europe and Japan, even more indulgent of their farmers, do the same and poor countries lower high barriers to imports.

It would be both wise and humane for Washington to take the lead in pushing for new multilateral talks sooner rather than later. The future of the World Trade Organization as a trade referee is at risk, along with the global impulse toward lowering trade barriers. Absent a consensus on trade, investment and development, bilateral deals -- and unilateral actions by the most powerful countries -- could do more harm than good.

Cancun was meant to advance a process begun two years ago and meant to be completed by the end of next year. Successful completion, according to the World Bank, could help raise global economic output by more than $500 billion yearly and lift 144 million people out of poverty by 2010.

What's crucial now is to curb the forces that have driven many countries' trade policies. That the poor countries took a stand should not provoke the rich into taking it as a declaration of war rather than the declaration of independence it is. Their actions must be seen in the context of their people's poverty and their inability to break out of the trap in which some wealthy countries' policies have put them.

Too much has been gained to allow the Cancun failure to point the world back toward the escalating protectionism that, in the 1930s, led to catastrophe.

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John Fund, Wall Street Journal, 09/17/06