CANCUN, Mexico, 13 September 2003 — WTO ministers, weary after fruitless, late-night bargaining, are to mount a fresh bid Friday to break a deadlock in multilateral trade talks, with the United States and the European Union turning up the heat on a bloc of developing countries.
Negotiators labored long and late Thursday to find a consensus on farm trade reforms but made no headway, according to World Trade Organization spokesman Keith Rockwell.
“I would characterize the discussion as being one in which there were really no alterations, or shifts or changes of any great magnitude at all,” he told reporters. He said Singapore Minister for Trade and Industry George Yeo, whose job is to close the gap, hoped to release fresh draft proposals yesterday.
Ministers representing 146 WTO members have until Sunday to overcome several obstacles that have been holding up progress toward a new global trade deal, the broad outlines of which were adopted two years ago in Doha, Qatar.
But delegates are near unanimous in saying that agriculture is the critical issue here and that if no headway is made in Cancun the future of the entire Doha round - due to conclude Jan. 1, 2005 - would be imperiled. Simply put, ministers must come to an agreement on how quickly and how comprehensively their governments will reduce - or eliminate - official assistance to farmers. Government subsidies supporting production and export, particularly in rich nations, are widely seen as driving down world farm prices and making it near impossible for farmers in poor countries to compete effectively on global markets.
Here in Cancun, the United States and the European Union are in essence up against a group of 20 or so developing countries, notably Brazil, China and India.
Known as the G-21, the bloc is pressing for sharp cuts in production subsidies and the complete elimination official financial assistance to agricultural exporters in rich nations.
European sources said that in Thursday’s talks the US delegation, led by US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, leveled heavy pressure on the G-21, a report that Zoellick’s deputy appeared to confirm in a later press conference.
