By Paul Blustein | Washington Post | November 14, 2001
Farm Subsidies, Textile Tariffs Are Key Points of Disagreement on Agenda
DOHA, Qatar -- Negotiators at a World Trade Organization meeting continued working through the night in hopes of reaching an agreement on a new round of global trade talks, with France and India threatening to block any deal.
"We are making progress," Pierre Pettigrew, Canadian trade minister, said as talks dragged on into this morning.
But Francois Huwart of France balked at demands by most of the other 141 trade ministers for talks aimed at phasing out subsidies for exports of agricultural products. He called the proposal a "deal-breaker point."
Disregarding a midnight deadline, with agreement still elusive, trade ministers and other delegation heads from the WTO's 142 member countries -- who must unanimously approve any deal -- planned to reconvene at 7 a.m. local time to consider compromise proposals.
The WTO failed to approve a new round of negotiations at its last meeting, two years ago in Seattle, which ended in acrimony amid violent anti-globalization protests.
The meeting in this Persian Gulf sheikdom has proceeded without disruption from anti-globalization activists, whose numbers were limited to a few dozen because of visa restrictions imposed by the Qatari authorities. But the possibility of another embarrassing failure has weighed heavily on the meeting because of the implications for both the global trading system and the war against terrorism.
Trade officials have repeatedly emphasized that maintaining the credibility of the WTO as the international arbiter of global commerce depends on erasing the memories of Seattle. The Bush administration, meanwhile, has put enormous importance on launching talks to lower trade barriers worldwide -- the meeting's central objective -- on the grounds that doing so would boost global economic confidence and cement the anti-terror coalition by benefiting developing countries.
Robert B. Zoellick, the U.S. trade representative, has made important concessions over the past couple of days that delighted many of his counterparts from Africa, Latin America, South Asia and other developing regions.
Zoellick agreed that in a new trade round, the subjects of negotiation could include anti-dumping laws, which are a cherished tool of politically powerful U.S. industries such as steel in keeping cheap imports from the American market. He also signed off on an agreement to give developing countries the right to override drug industry patents if they need cheap generic medicine to deal with public health emergencies such as AIDS.
But the drive to revitalize the WTO has been undermined to some extent by complaints from developing countries, led by India, about other WTO rules that favor rich nations. Among India's strongest objections are high tariffs that the United States, among others, uses to protect its textile and clothing industry.
Late Tuesday, Murasoli Maran, India's minister of commerce and industry, repeated his threat to block the necessary consensus for a deal, criticizing a proposed draft declaration for, among other things, failing to go far enough to speed up reductions in textile tariffs. He said that while India was "very keen for the success" of the Doha meeting, "the very serious concerns and difficulties pointed out by several delegations including India had not been given due consideration."
Murasoli and Huwart dampened hopes for a deal that had soared Monday after the agreement on drug patents.
The issue of agricultural export subsidies, the main sticking point for the French, involves one of the most important reasons for launching a new round. The European Union's subsidies, estimated at more than $90 billion, have been blamed by the World Bank, among others, for giving Europe's farmers an unfair advantage in world markets at the expense of more competitive farmers in poor countries.
Accordingly, most countries at the meeting have insisted on language in the draft declaration committing WTO members to negotiating "reductions of, with a view to phasing out, all forms of export subsidies." But "phasing out" is anathema to France, whose farmers exert enormous political clout -- and Paris, in turn, exerts enormous clout within the EU. A similar dispute was one of the reasons for the debacle in Seattle.
"We believe it is unreasonable to be asked to commit ourselves to the end result of a negotiation before negotiations have even started," EU spokesman Anthony Gooch said. But other countries were adamantly opposed to watering down or omitting the words "phasing out" from the text. According to one insider, more than half the delegates in a closed-door meeting said they would walk out if the wording were changed.By Paul Blustein:
