HONOLULU -- Terrorism is very much on the minds of trade ministers meeting since the weekend in Doha, Qatar, to discuss a new round of global trade talks. Some are worried about personal safety: Many received security briefings from their national intelligence services on the possibility of a terror attack during the meeting. Many are also trying to reconcile a set of conflicting priorities created by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States. The need to liberalize trade and open borders to economic opportunities is clashing with the imperatives of the international fight against terrorism. The dilemma is not insuperable. In fact, the conflicting demands can be reconciled, but it will take creative diplomacy to meet both objectives.

The need for a new trade round grows more pressing each day. "The perfect storm" -- a simultaneous slowdown in the U.S., Japan and the euro zone, the three traditional engines of the global economy -- threatens to exact a severe toll worldwide. Growth forecasts are spiraling downward: According to the United Nations, the world economy will expand only 1.4 percent this year; a few months ago, projections called for 2.4 percent growth. Ominously, world trade is contracting. Global exports and imports grew 13 percent in 2000; they are expected to grow only 1 percent this year.

In this situation, the need for a new global trade round, one that cuts barriers to trade and facilitates growth, has never been clearer or more pressing. The World Bank estimates that liberalization would permit developing countries to raise gross domestic product by 0.5 percent over the long term; it would lift 300 million people out of poverty by 2015. That is vitally important as the world faces up to the threat of terrorism. While terrorism has many roots, offering the poorer citizens of the planet hope and a better life would help eliminate the conditions that create support for terrorist movements.