Washington and Wall Street have been talking about corporate tax reform for years, but the outcome of that debate has proven no better than the Doha Round on farm trade subsidies at the WTO.
Over five years, the Americans propose to eliminate export subsidies for farm products, and to slash both tariffs on farm goods and trade-distorting subsidies for farmers.
Trade-distorting subsidies may rise so much, Europeans fear, that America will break its Uruguay-round commitments.
Contrary to received wisdom, slashing the rich world's trade-distorting subsidies has a relatively small effect on poor countries.
At the end of June, Chinese and European officials met in a bid to avert a trade war over subsidies.
Firstly, the economy has long been geared to exports, through the creation of special trade zones and subsidies offered by local governments.
Mr Portman's proposal includes a 60% reduction in the levels of farm supports and a 53% reduction in trade-distorting subsidies, as well as steep cuts to tariffs.
Yet the suspicion is that such gambles lie beyond the talents of most steel managers, who have grown soft under the soothing influence of trade barriers and subsidies.
The divide over agriculture threatens to undermine Doha because the developing countries, which object most strongly to the trade-distorting subsidies provided to farmers in the industrial world, were such reluctant participants in the first place.
In the Uruguay round, pushed by America, countries agreed to cut and set ceilings on their trade-distorting agricultural subsidies.
Malaysia built a national car, the Proton, using trade barriers and government subsidies.
Subsidies, trade protections and other economic distortions accumulate, and resources increasingly flow to a specialised class of lawyers, bureaucrats and lobbyists who know how to work the system.
Quite reasonably, it asks for trade barriers and agricultural subsidies to be removed by the developed world so that African producers can compete fairly though many African countries would benefit at least as much if they removed their own barriers as well.
The answer, of course, is to support cap-and-trade legislation and alternative energy subsidies.
Brazil won a dispute in the World Trade Organization over US cotton subsidies and wants to see them removed completely.
BBC: Brazil sees steady ties with US after Obama re-election
Mr Brown has told delegates that action on trade barriers, tariffs and subsidies would benefit not only developing countries, but the entire world economy.
Ms Spelman has said that the policy distorts trade and called for the subsidies to have less emphasis on food production, and reward farmers who take steps to protect the environment.
However, global trade rules do not apply to subsidies created by monetary means.
China has filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization (WTO) against subsidies provided by some European governments to solar panel makers.
Other countries like China recycle their foreign trade imbalances and use dollars as fuel subsidies.
They want the Anglo-Saxon economic model - a liberalised economy, open markets, free trade, an end to the agricultural subsidies that, for the French, have been the bedrock of the European Union for half a century.
Delegates left Rome without consensus on key issues such as the increased demand for crops to produce biofuels and the impact on world food prices, and there is also no agreement on the lifting of trade barriers and the issue of farm subsidies, officials said.
He seemed to learn a lesson at a Latin American summit this month, that agricultural subsidies in place in the US and other countries can really complicate new trade deals, and he wants nations to come to the table and discuss whether those subsidies are really needed, and he wants to use this summit to get those conversations really moving.
The World Trade Organization has ruled that our tax export subsidies--known as Foreign Sales Corporation and Extraterritorial Income Exclusion provisions--are illegal.
Earlier this year, more than a hundred signed a letter to the World Trade Organization, urging it to scale back subsidies to the fishing sector.
However, if the subsidies, tariffs and the Cuban trade embargo were not in place, and Americans were able to purchase freely sugar at world prices, would the American sugar industry still be competitive?
At every opportunity, the IMF, the World Bank and the poor countries themselves stress the need for the industrial economies to demonstrate their commitment to free trade by opening up markets and ending domestic subsidies, in particular to farmers.
Such subsidies, and a range of other trade barriers, keep poor countries out of markets where they could reasonably hope to compete, despite their many disadvantages.
Canada has already won a case against Brazil in the World Trade Organisation, arguing that Brazil's export subsidies give Embraer's planes an unfair advantage in international markets.
Transatlantic trade relations are already soured by the row over subsidies to Airbus and Boeing, so any concessions to the Europeans would face a tough time on Capitol Hill, even if the result was that Continental, Delta and Northwest would finally gain access to Heathrow.
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