International Trade Reporter
The United States will support convening another ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization only after it has reached agreement with other major industrialized countries, including the European Union, on the agenda for launching a new round of multilateral trade negotiations, the chief U.S. trade negotiator said March 7.
U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky said that some "base line understanding" among the so-called Quad countries--the United States, European Union, Japan, and Canada--will have to be the "first step" toward reconvening the WTO ministerial meeting that ended in failure last December (16 ITR 1990, 12/9/99).
"If the major trading partners cannot sort out their differences," she said, "there will not be another round."
Many developing countries, however, have said that their interests will also have to be taken into account before new trade talks can be held.
Barshefsky, testifying at a hearing of the Senate Finance Subcommittee on International Trade, said that the last WTO ministerial meeting, held in Seattle, Wash., Nov. 30 to Dec. 3, 1999, had exposed a number of differences between the United States and the EU that could not be overcome.
And she said that whether it will be possible in the coming months to resolve those differences--particularly over the breadth of the agenda for a new round of WTO trade talks--"is a very open question."
She said that the EU, which supports launching an all-inclusive round of talks dealing with trade as well as traditionally non-trade issues such as investment and competition policy, has not shown any willingness to move, while Japan has demonstrated "very little movement" toward compromise.
U.S. Wants 'Sensible' Agenda
Barshefsky said that the United States, which initially favored restricting the talks to market-opening initiatives, now would be willing to broaden the negotiations.
"We're in active consultations with our Quad partners to see if it is possible to develop some notion of a round more in keeping with a sensible agenda [than proposed by the EU]," she said, "but one that is far broader than simply agriculture and services."
"To build international consensus for such a round will not be a simple task," she said. "However, the outlines can be drawn if WTO members prove willing to rethink their negotiating positions...and find the balance that allows us to move ahead....We are willing to be flexible, and expect our trading partners to do the same."
Barshefsky told reporters after the subcommittee hearing that the Quad countries, however, have not yet scheduled a ministerial meeting to address the issue.
"We are working with the Quad partners," she said. "We'll schedule a Quad meeting if it would be productive to do so. But at this point it would be premature."
Sen. Grassley Wants Broader Talks
The chairman of the subcommittee--Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa)--said he supports the launching of new agricultural trade liberalization talks this year under the WTO's "built-in" agenda. But he said it will be necessary, in his view, to expand those talks to include other issues, and eventually to launch a new round of wide-ranging global trade negotiations--as attempted in Seattle.
Grassley said, however, that the United States was apparently continuing to press for a much narrower negotiating agenda than was required to obtain concessions from other countries in the agriculture sector.
"This is very discouraging," he said. "I don't know how we can get a good deal for agriculture without a comprehensive agenda....We need to keep our eyes on the big picture [and] to go back to the negotiating table and to work to get a new round under way with more comprehensive scope...."
'Built-In' Talks to Begin March 23
Barshefsky said that the administration continues to support the launching of a new round of WTO negotiations but will work in the meantime to address the concerns of U.S. farmers and ranchers in the "built-in" agenda talks, scheduled to begin in Geneva on March 23.
She said that the United States, in particular, will work to eliminate agricultural export subsidies; lower tariffs; substantially reduce trade-distorting domestic support; improve market access for U.S. agricultural products under tariff-rate quotas; strengthen disciplines on the operation of state-trading enterprises; and ensure that trade in biotechnology products is based on transparent, predictable, and timely administrative processes.
By Gary G. Yerkey
Copyright c 2000 by The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc., Washington D.C.:
