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U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman, right, talks with Pascal Lamy, Director-General of the World Trade Organization
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28 January 2006
Davos Meeting Pushes WTO Talks Toward Progress Across the Board, January 28, 2006 (But action on agriculture central to development, USTR Portman says)
By Andrzej Zwaniecki
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington -- An informal meeting of trade, economic and commerce ministers from 18 countries and the European Union (EU) has created a sense that World Trade Organization (WTO) trade liberalization talks must advance in all areas for the negotiations to succeed, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Portman says.
The ministers meeting at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, set an April 30 deadline for agreement on modalities -- specific details and time frames -- for further WTO negotiations, officially known as the Doha Development Agenda and previously the Doha Development Round. The deadline needs to be formally approved by the broader WTO ministerial forum.
“You see people coming together this morning as we discuss to say this ought to be a single undertaking and we ought to work to bring all of these issues together including trade facilitation, development and rules into one package ... we need to do this simultaneously,” he said.
The United States strongly supports all the liberalizing aspects of the talks, including the trade and industrial tariffs known as non-agriculture market access (NAMA) issues.
Portman spoke at a January 28 panel discussion that brought together WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy and officials from several other countries, after the informal meeting.
Calling the Doha Round a “once in a generation” opportunity, Portman said that all nations have much to lose if the talks fail.
“If we keep that in mind I think we can work through some of these tough issues,” he said
AGRICULTURE ISSUES REMAIN CONTENTIOUS
Despite a “new dynamic,” which according to several participants emerged during the informal meeting, progress in the long-stalled WTO negotiations is far from being assured as evinced by some of the exchanges between participants, particularly between EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson and Brazil’s minister of foreign relations Celso Amorim.
Amorim argued that the Doha Round, to be true to its name, needs to further development and that the best and fastest way for developing countries to advance is trough liberalization of agricultural trade, a view supported by Portman. (See related article.)
Mandelson questioned, however, the central role of agriculture in development and said that an agriculture-based development model should not be imposed on all poor countries. He said that only developed and large emerging economies such as Brazil are to gain from the elimination of agricultural tariffs while poor nations’ economies will be “wiped out” by any agreement to that effect.
Brazil, which leads the Group of 20 (G20) developing countries with a particular interest in agriculture negotiations, has denied it is pursuing its self-interest and said that the G20 had worked out a common position with the much broader group of 90 developing countries during the December 2005 WTO ministerial meeting in Hong Kong, according to press reports.
Mandelson also suggested that a slower, more gradual approach to farm trade liberalization might work better, noting that it took several decades for industrial tariffs to be reduced significantly.
This suggestion was, however, rejected by Amorim who said that a delay in farm trade liberalization would hamper the economic advance of developing countries.
A day earlier Mandelson said that the “alliance between the United States and Brazil [on agriculture] has led to stalemate in these [WTO] talks.”
Portman said that the Bush administration indeed believes that agriculture is essential for the Doha Round to “come together” because of the central role it plays in development and other factors. And that is why it has made a bold proposal to eliminate trade-distorting farm subsidies.
Earlier, Portman criticized the EU for refusing to improve its latest agricultural offer, which he said would result in little or no real increase in market access.
But he added that the United States has never focused on agricultural issues solely.
Lamy said that tough negotiations are still ahead and that support from governments’ domestic constituencies will be crucial for any progress in the Doha Round. Nevertheless, he said he gained a sense in Davos that the picture of the “end game” starts to appear in minds of WTO stakeholders.
For additional information, see USA and the WTO.
