Resistance to tariff cuts is strongest in agriculture. According to Tim Josling, a trade expert at Stanford University, tariffs and other barriers on farm goods average a crippling 40% worldwide and create distortions that “destroy huge amounts of value”. A new set of global farm talk is planned to start in 1999. At the least, you might think, these could lock in impressive reforms in Latin America and encourage further watering-down of the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy. But they will prove difficult: squabbles over agriculture almost sank the Uruguay round.