Inside US Trade | November 12, 2001
DOHA--The European Union is increasingly isolated in its demand that an existing draft declaration on future negotiations in the World Trade Organization be changed with respect to agriculture.
Major agricultural exporters, including the United States, have endorsed the pending text as an acceptable minimum mandate for agriculture negotiations, according to informed sources. In addition, Japan has signaled support for the draft declaration in a closed-door meeting at the second day of the ministerial, they said.
"The U.S., Cairns and Japan are prepared to accept [the text]," one official from a Cairns country said. "The EU is on its own now."
Sources cautioned that this tentative agreement on the text could be jeopardized if there is a change in the overall balance of the declaration, or a hard push to change the agriculture text in either direction. But Singapore trade minister George Yeo, who has been designated as the official to facilitate an agriculture compromise, has characterized the agriculture text as "on the green" with only a short distance before it can be putted into the hole, sources said.
One Japanese official said that Japan considers the draft declaration a reasonable basis for negotiation but that its position on agriculture relates to the overall package that will emerge from Doha, particularly the language on antidumping. Some observers believe that Japan gave the U.S. a delicately worded signal that it could eventually live with the existing draft declaration in a Nov. 7 letter from Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to President George Bush. In that letter, Koizumi says he hopes Japan and the U.S. can cooperate on agriculture at the ministerial and points out that Japan is already playing a constructive role. But the letter also emphasized that antidumping and subsidies negotiations were an "essential" element of future WTO negotiations (Inside U.S. Trade, Nov. 9, p.1).
This leaves the EU to fight a lonely battle against a proposed mandate that calls for the eventual end of export subsidies. Senior EU officials have repeatedly said they cannot accept wording that calls for negotiations to reduce export subsidies with a view to phasing them out. The EU has also repeatedly called for the agriculture mandate to give more balance to non-trade concerns, such as the preservation of rural development subsidies. But a U.S. trade official said on Nov. 11 that the major issue for the EU seems to be the export subsidy language.
In the Nov. 10 "green room" meeting, the U.S. said the agriculture text in the Oct. 27 declaration prepared by WTO General Council chairman Stuart Harbinson represents an acceptable minimum mandate for future negotiations. The Harbinson text "serves as a very good basis for negotiating a final outcome on agriculture," Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Peter Allgeier said. But he cautioned that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, and emphasized that the U.S. has to look at the big picture.
Cairns countries, which include major exporters like Canada, Australia and Latin American countries, said they could accept the proposed text though they will continue to articulate demands that it go further.
Canada is "relatively comfortable" with the Oct. 27 text, a senior Canadian trade official said. "Our assessment is that the Harbinson text remains the middle ground, and one the chair [of the agriculture group] continues to see as a middle ground," he said. He added that Canada's position was consistent with that of the Cairns Group.
Argentina, another Cairns Group member, has also informally signaled it could accept the Harbinson text, even though it is formally pushing for the WTO draft declaration to reflect the demands of the Cairns Group. In an Oct. 18 declaration, the Cairns Group sought stronger language on eliminating export subsidies and weaker language on non-trade concerns relative to agriculture. "For the time being, we will stay with the Cairns group text," said Marcelo Regunaga, Argentina's minister of agriculture.Inside US Trade:
