HONG KONG — Pressure mounted at the World Trade Organization summit on Wednesday as negotiators appeared to give little ground on key issues.
A framework for a treaty to reduce or eliminate tariffs among the 149 WTO member nations remained elusive, although delegates said there at least seemed to be a desire to address the obstacles.
“People are a little bit on edge” and holding their positions, a WTO spokesman said, summing up the second day of the talks here.
Expectations are low for producing a roadmap that, by the end of next year, would complete the Doha Round of negotiations that began four years ago to promote free trade, with major implications for agriculture and industrial goods and services, including textiles and apparel. The talks are to end Sunday.
“A mixture of brinkmanship and bidding up by large-scale agricultural exporters is standing in the way,” said Peter Mandelson, European Union trade commissioner, who added that the EU is implementing “significant agricultural reforms.”
He noted that trade subsidies must be cut back and improvements in market access are essential. The EU has been arguing for duty-free and quota-free access for least developed countries. But Mandelson said he is worried the package of proposals for less developed countries may be in trouble because of concerns over the scope of access, the number of countries involved and the amount of product categories. He said he met with the group representing least developed countries, which shared those concerns.
The U.S. sees the 25-member EU as standing in the way of a Doha deal. U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman said in a speech, “I believe the proposal [put forward by the U.S. two months ago] energized the talks at a crucial stage. Unfortunately, that energy has now dissipated while we wait for a small number of key members who refuse to agree to a balanced package in agriculture.”
He later proposed Europe agree to a global formula that calls for cuts of export subsidies by 2010, reduction and eventual elimination of domestic subsidies and greater market access for the developing world in the form of tariff and quota cuts.
The U.S. is said to want to exclude most textiles from a plan to eliminate duties for less developed countries, but it hasn’t yet been confirmed, said Auggie Tantillo, executive director of the American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition, who is in Hong Kong.
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Cass Johnson, president for the U.S. National Council of Textile Organizations, also said he hasn’t been able to confirm that the U.S. is excluding textiles, but said “it would be great if that was the resolution.”
The U.S. announced Wednesday that it would double its contribution on aid for trade to $2.7 billion a year by 2010. The WTO spokesman said an agreement won’t be reached on assistance for trade at the talks, just as a deal on tariff-cutting formulas in agriculture and industrial products isn’t anticipated. But there are concerns that, if no movement is made on agriculture, then other topics on the agenda will suffer.
Cotton is a sensitive area of the agricultural talks. African countries are anxious to get the issue moving. However, the U.S. and EU have said that it isn’t ideal to go to sector-specific negotiations.
Karan Bhatia, deputy U.S. trade representative, acknowledged that some of the needs of cotton-producing African countries can’t wait for wealthy countries to resolve subsidy issues and said ending subsidies won’t end poverty in Africa. “We have to improve their livelihood” by helping producers be more effective, Bhatia said.
African nations have tried to keep the issue alive since the last round of talks in Cancún, Mexico, in 2003, said Samuel Amehou, Benin Ambassador in Geneva. The Cancún talks broke down when African cotton-producing countries walked out over the issue of subsidies in rich nations.
Amehou said there has been no solution since then and “the situation on the ground is very bad.” He said cotton producers met with the U.S. to discuss the situation and, in the meantime, they have proposed temporary financial support “to avoid that cotton disappears.”
Ibrahim Malloum, president of the African Cotton Association, said he doesn’t want a walkout to occur again, but they came to Hong Kong during harvest time and spent thousands of dollars on the trip, so they want this issue resolved and their proposals respected. “Cotton is our life,” Malloum said. “It’s the one product we can export competitively.”
In contrast with Tuesday, when thousands of protesters marched, demonstrations quieted down even as opponents of free trade tried to push past police lines. They grabbed 10 police shields, but didn’t break the defense line.