Front Page	E-mail PagePrint Version

Bush Administration will not abandon failed agricultural negotiations

WASHINGTON, DC - 08/02/06 - The US has no intention of giving up on World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations despite their indefinite suspension, said US Trade Representative (USTR) Susan Schwab.

WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy announced last week indefinite suspension of the negotiations, following a failed meeting among six major participants.

"The Doha Round obviously is in serious trouble, but it isn't dead yet," said Schwab, who just returned to Washington from a series of intense meetings in Geneva. 

At that meeting the US, Australia, Brazil, India, Japan, and the European Union (EU) failed to agree on how to proceed with the talks.
 
Schwab told reporters in Washington over the weekend that the Bush Administration intends to do everything possible to reach a successful conclusion of the Doha Round.

But she acknowledged that an agreement on more liberal trade rules among the WTO's 149 members, if it happens at all, is very unlikely to be completed in time for the US Congress to consider it under existing trade negotiating authority, which expires in July 2007.

"We don't know whether we're even going to be able to ... get to 'yes' on Doha or will we get to 'yes' on Doha in three months, in six months or three years," said Schwab. 

She said she has either already talked or is planning to talk to trade ministers from several countries in coming months to explore possible ways of reviving the negotiations, adding that she would do this rather than blame others for the negotiations reaching a dead-end.

The EU and India have blamed the US for the failure of the Doha round, criticism Schwab decisively rejected.

She said the EU and some other countries wanted a more limited agreement that would retain numerous exclusions of sensitive and special agricultural products as well as a special safeguard mechanism for temporarily blocking agricultural imports. 

Schwab added that any agreement leaving in place the very highest peak tariffs would have institutionalized them, thus making it difficult to get rid of them in the future.

Congress would have been unlikely to approve an agreement that had not lowered tariffs enough to create new trade flows, she said.

Schwab said it is "too early" to decide whether to complete work on Doha issues on which countries have made significant progress - such as trade facilitation, trade-capacity building and export subsidies - separate from the tougher issues.

"I think we need to let the dust settle a little bit," she said. "We need to think about what all the options are in terms of getting a Doha Round accomplished."

A proposal to continue WTO negotiations on trade facilitation suggested by EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson was rejected by an EU committee and was met with skepticism by WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy, according to news reports.

Schwab said the US intends to pursue "more actively" bilateral and regional free trade agreements.

She said countries with which the US already has free trade agreements, such as Australia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico, are the most vocal supporters of an ambitious WTO deal.

On Monday, President Bush backed the USTR pledging to try to jump-start the stalled Doha Round, saying that opening up foreign markets would boost the US economy.

"We'll do everything we can to get Doha back on track," he said before touring the Port of Miami by boat. "They have a chance to create new jobs and economic growth, not only here, but elsewhere."

"The problem is that some others aren't committed" to the talks. Completing the Doha Round is going to demand tough choices," he said.

Go back, or read the latest Front Page stories:

Korea, US Free Trade Pact ''Possible'' by Early 2007

WASHINGTON, DC – 10/25/06 – A free trade pact between the US and South Korea could become a reality by early 2007, says chief US negotiator Wendy Cutler at the opening of this week’s fourth round of talks between the two countries; since the two sides launched FTA negotiations in February they have reported little progress even though they postponed consideration of the most politically sensitive issues, such as US access to the Korean rice market.