GENEVA — The crisis in the global trade talks deepened Monday after five days of high-level talks here among major trading powers failed to break the logjam over farm trade differences, senior diplomatic sources said.
Instead of narrowing the gaps on how to proceed to lower barriers to international commercial flows in farm products and industrial goods, chief negotiators resorted to finger pointing. The U.S. and the European Union were the most vocal.
A senior U.S. official told reporters on the condition of anonymity that the Bush administration is willing to move to the middle ground, but “first of all, we’ve got to see this movement by the EU on market access.”
On domestic support to farmers, the U.S. official said the EU is allowed “four to five times more of what we’re allowed.”
A senior EU official countered, however, that Brussels is committed to moving ahead on farm trade reform and has taken a constructive line on market access.
David Spencer, Australia’s World Trade Organization ambassador, said members “are looking for some leadership from the big two.”
This sentiment was shared by Clodoaldo Hugueney, Brazil’s under secretary general for foreign affairs, and chief WTO negotiator.
“We’re waiting to see progress, but I see no convergence of positions,” he said.
But Brazil, along with India and Argentina, were singled out by the senior U.S. official for putting forward a market access proposal for industrial goods that would not make progress in “reducing tariffs where they are very high and getting new market opportunities either for developed or developing countries.”
The U.S. believes the three-country proposal would perpetuate an imbalance where “countries that have done the least in the past would continue through this formula to do less in the future.”