Trade talks collapse as US feuds with China, India
GENEVA (AP) - July 29, 2008 Trade officials from two developed and one emerging country told
The Associated Press that a meeting of seven commercial powers
broke up without agreement at the World Trade Organization on
Tuesday.
The officials, who asked not to be named because the news was
soon to be announced to a larger meeting of countries, said a U.S.
dispute with China and India over farm import safeguards had
effectively ended any hope of a breakthrough.
Two officials said WTO chief Pascal Lamy had informed ministers
that convergence could not be reached after nine days of talks.
U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab appeared downcast as she
began to brief reporters. She said negotiators were "so close on
Friday," but then stopped speaking. Asked if the round was over,
she said: "I didn't say that" and walked away.
Negotiators were hoping for a deal this week on farm and
industrial trade, so that crisis-ridden WTO talks could be saved.
They were launched in 2001, but have repeatedly stalled amid deep
divisions between rich and poor nations.
Some officials had described this meeting at the WTO's Geneva
headquarters as a last chance for the so-called Doha trade round,
noting that U.S. and other national elections would make
negotiations difficult over the next couple of years.
A number of trade officials described the debate pitting the
United States against China and India as one of principle - and not
just hard economics. Others blamed a lack of courage for the
standoff.
"It is a jump in the dark," Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso
Amorim said before final efforts Tuesday. "You can't calculate
until the very last situation all the hypotheses. If you do that
(the round) will never finish. It will take two years, three years.
It will probably be for a new generation."
The issue concerned a "special safeguard" developing countries
led by China and India have demanded to deal with a sudden surge of
imports or drop in prices.
While farm import safeguards currently exist in rich and poor
countries, they are rarely used. The dispute over the current
proposals concerns the threshold for when developing nations could
sharply raise their tariffs, and how high those taxes could rise.
The United States had accused the two emerging powers of
insisting on allowances to raise farm tariffs above even their
current levels. That violates the spirit of the trade round, the
U.S. and other agricultural exporters argued, because it is
supposed to help poorer countries develop their economies by
boosting their exports of farm produce.