Inside US Trade | October 26, 2001
The U.S. and other World Trade Organization members struggled this week with how to handle sending delegations to the Ministerial meeting Nov. 9-13, after political confirmations that the meeting would move forward as planned in Doha, Qatar. The size of the U.S. delegation will be significantly reduced with negotiators in Qatar being supported by officials in Washington and Geneva, a USTR spokesman said Oct. 25.
The USTR spokesman said that key agency personnel would be participating, but did not say whether all USTR deputies would be attending in person. "We will be fully participating with a scaled-back delegation," he said.
He also said that USTR was providing security briefings to government officials. "We're trying to put this thing together under abnormal circumstances," he said.
At press time, there were no indications that any countries would simply decline to send delegations. Canada's delegation is also likely to be scaled back by 10-20 percent, according to a government source, while Japanese and European delegations will also be scaled back. Some of this is due to the scarcity of hotel accommodations in Doha, but some is also due to individuals who are refusing to travel to the region, according to reliable sources.
Now that the question of venue seems to be settled, countries are being very careful in official pronouncements not to give an indication that anyone is uncomfortable attending the ministerial in Doha. But in the U.S. and Canada, officials in and outside of the government admit privately to reservations about traveling to the Middle East at a time of war.
A proposal from Singapore to host the ministerial as a back-up venue earlier this month was met by a determined block of Arab countries who made clear to WTO Director-General Mike Moore and others that they would oppose any effort to move the meeting from Doha.
Arab Ambassadors to the WTO met last week in Geneva and affirmed that they would back Qatar in its position that the ministerial must not be moved, trade sources said. This unified front sent a signal to other WTO members, particularly those apprehensive about following through on the Doha location, that moving the ministerial was not to be accomplished without a fight.
Qatar itself sent demarches to key WTO members conveying the message that any attempt to change the venue would be an affront to Muslims and Arabs everywhere (Inside U.S. Trade, Oct. 19, p. 28). The demarche said that Qatar attached "great importance" to holding the ministerial in Doha at the planned time.
Moving the meeting to Singapore was "a measure against Muslim countries, especially at this juncture so rife with attempts to demonize Islam and link it to terrorism," according to the demarche.
The diplomatic effort from Qatar was in response to the offer from Singapore to pull together a scaled-down ministerial if a decision was made to change the venue. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick had pushed during preparatory meetings in Singapore for WTO members to accept the proposal from Singapore to change the venue, informed sources said.
But the intransigence shown by Qatar and other Arab states presented two problems for proponents of moving the Ministerial conference, trade sources said. The first and most obvious one is that because the WTO operates by consensus, Qatar's opposition even by itself would have been sufficient to stop the selection of another venue. Secondly, there are provisions in WTO protocols to vote on contentious issues, but that was seen as a loser in this case. For one thing, if WTO countries voted to change the venue of the ministerial, it was likely that ruffled Arab countries would skip the event, making it impossible to launch a new multilateral round.
On the U.S. side, a political dispute that risked a major affront to a number of Middle Eastern states at this time was seen as a very undesirable outcome by Bush Administration officials, according to informed sources.
President Bush signalled Oct. 20 that Doha would be the location for the WTO meeting. "All of us, every nation, must redouble our efforts to see that Doha is a success," Bush said at the meeting of world leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum in Shanghai. This was taken as a signal that the U.S. would back Qatar's bid to block a change of venue.
WTO Director-General Mike Moore visited Doha Oct. 20-22, and was satisfied after meeting with Qatari officials that they were prepared to host the event. "If something seismic or catastrophic happens we will reconsider. But we're planning to come here to Doha in just over two weeks time," Moore said in an Oct. 22 statement.
While European officials had also expressed reservations about moving forward in Qatar, in light of the U.S. campaign in the region, the EU this week moved quickly to support the Doha location. "It was never in discussion that [EU Agriculture and Trade Commissioners] Fischler and Lamy would not go to Doha," according to a Commission spokesman.
The spokesman said the EU reservations about holding it in Doha had not been based on the security of the EU delegation, but instead were based on fears that some countries would not send high-level officials to the region, making it more difficult to move forward with the WTO workplan.
But following the political signals that the ministerial would come off as planned in Qatar, many questions remain about the size of the delegation the U.S. would send, the level of attendance from the U.S. business community, and whether any countries would decline to send delegations to Doha.
Several business figures, including prominent ones, are opting not to attend the Doha ministerial because of concerns about the safety of U.S. citizens, business sources said. These groups were seeking to meet with USTR officials this week to discuss what kind of security arrangements are being made for U.S. private-sector visitors to the event.
Likewise, the presence of labor and environmental groups in Doha will be severely reduced because of security concerns. Several NGO sources said they had cancelled their trip or were seriously reconsidering plans to attend following Moore's announcement that the conference would proceed in Doha as planned.
A lessened U.S. business presence could hamper U.S. negotiators who are accustomed to being able to consult regularly with key industry representatives on the ground, sources said.
However, one business source said this would be less of a factor in Doha because the language in the draft declaration was intentionally made general enough that it leaves the key issues to be decided in the negotiations. This means it is less critical for U.S. negotiators to consult with business, the source said.
In addition, some U.S. trade officials, including at least one senior official, have serious apprehensions about traveling to Qatar, informed sources said. They said that USTR would be scaling back its delegation, but several sources said these decisions were still very much in flux.
Under normal circumstances, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative could be expected to send from between 30 to 40 people to a WTO ministerial, according to one former trade official. That includes the USTR and several staff members, a couple of staff members from Geneva, a couple officials from the WTO office in Washington, plus staff from the substantive and regional offices such as agriculture, industry, China, etc.
Aside from USTR, officials from the Depts. of Agriculture, Commerce, Labor, State and the Environmental Protection Agency would also be expected to attend.Inside US Trade:
