GENEVA, July 24: The World Trade Organisation was seeing the benefits of freer global farm trade for developing countries slip from its grasp after the collapse of a crucial round of talks on Monday. Talks between six nations on a trade deal at the World Trade Organisation are in crisis mainly over aid for agriculture and access to industrial markets.
The six nations that include Australia, Brazil, the European Union, India, Japan and the United States represent a cross section of economic interests in the 149-nation World Trade Organisation and were trying to salvage the troubled Doha Round of trade talks.
While negotiators from some of the 149 countries and WTO director general Pascal Lamy were working out the way ahead, EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson warned of the huge cost of failure in the five year-old effort. “We risk weakening the WTO and the multilateral trading system at a time when we urgently need to top up international confidence, not further damage it,” Mandelson said after the collapse of a meeting of six influential WTO nations.
“Along with economic, there is a huge political cost of failure,” he told journalists. “The United States was unwilling or unable to show any flexibility on the issue of farm subsidies,” Mandelson said after the meeting at the World Trade Organisation. “The United States judged that it was better that the trade talks be discontinued at this stage,” he added. “The European Union deeply regrets this.” The EU trade chief expressed “profound disappointment and sadness” at the suspension of the talks.
US trade representative Susan Schwab blamed World Trade Organisation partners for refusing to open their markets and provoking a major crisis in negotiations. “We’re obviously very disappointed,” Schwab told a news conference after talks had broken down.
She did not indicate how far the United States had been willing to go to reach a deal, but said that while Washington was willing to accept a larger percentage of so-called “sensitive products” for each country, it would “not (be) at the cost of neglecting market access”.
Indian Trade Minister Kamal Nath blamed the US on Monday for the collapse of global trade talks, saying Washington had not matched flexibility shown by other WTO nations on farm trade.
Nath said that uncompromising US negotiators had found themselves isolated during crunch talks here on Sunday and Monday where six trading powers had tried to save the troubled five-year bid to open up agricultural and industrial trade.—Agencies
