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WTO in critical free trade negotiations

Reporters surround Indian Trade Minister Kamal Nath as he leaves the WTO talks late on Thursday at the WTO headquarters in Geneva. The US, the EU, Japan, India, Brazil, China and Australia were to meet again for talks yesterday. PHOTO: AFP

Top WTO negotiators headed for make-or-break talks yesterday, with progress needed on key sticking points to avert another ignominious collapse of attempts to broker a new global free-trade pact.

After four days of negotiations, there was scant evidence of rich and poor countries finding common ground to end a seven-year stalemate in the WTO negotiations, but yesterday’s talks were seen as critical.

“We will continue tomorrow and I think tomorrow ... is the day in which we must know whether it [a deal] is possible or not,” Celso Amorim, Brazil’s foreign minister and chief trade negotiator, said as talks finished on Thursday.

“Maybe we don’t finish everything but we must have an agreement,” Amorim said.

The WTO convened a meeting of 35 leading trade negotiators with the aim of mapping out a deal to conclude the long-delayed Doha Round of global trade talks.

The Doha Round began seven years ago with the aim of helping poor countries enjoy the fruits of freer global trade, but the process has been repeatedly delayed by disputes between the rich, developed world and poorer developing nations.

US Trade Representative Susan Schwab also said that yesterday’s session would be decisive.

“We’ll see tomorrow whether everybody is prepared to do their share,” Schwab said.

“The US came here to make a deal. And we’ve been forthcoming. We will continue to stretch, to do our share,” she said.

On Tuesday, Washington offered to cut its official aid ceiling for its farmers to US$15 billion a year — a move greeted by key developing economy India as welcome, but still inadequate.

Emerging and developed countries remain locked in a familiar pattern of demanding new moves from each other, with the success of this week’s gathering hinging on whether they can find common ground.

This brinkmanship has seen several previous meetings since 2001 collapse without a deal and one diplomatic source, who asked not to be named, raised the specter of another failure on Thursday.

Costa Rican Trade Minister Marco Vinicio Ruiz urged trading powers to show flexibility to overcome sticking points in order to avoid failure.

“Either we realize that the ... bottom lines that we defined before need to be revised or we defend them until the last number and make the negotiations collapse,” he said, according to a statement released by his office.

The US, the EU, Japan, India, Brazil, Australia and China are to meet again for talks at midday on Friday before a larger gathering of all 35 invited ministers later in the day, officials said.

Indian Commerce Minister Kamal Nath on Thursday said that the talks were only “inching forward rather than jumping.”

“The progress is the good part, if it’s slow it’s natural,” he said.

Amorim also sought to portray the day’s negotiations in a positive light.

“So far there was no break up. There was engagement. There was interest in continuing,” Amorim said, saying he preferred a “constructive” attitude to one of pessimism.

“Time is running out. There is not much time and, of course, there is the limitation of physical fitness,” he said, referring to the grueling nature of talks here, which finished at 4am on Thursday morning.

Any final deal — if approved by negotiators — would be proposed to all 153 WTO members, who would have to ratify it individually.

A failure would plunge the WTO into crisis and set back talks for many years, observers say.

After meetings of the 35 invited delegations failed to deliver progress early in the week, WTO head Pascal Lamy has concentrated his efforts on trying to get a smaller group of seven leading trade powers to find common ground on key issues.

Eight delegations complained about the approach at a morning meeting, Rockwell said, with host nation Switzerland leading the criticism.

“You have put many of us ministers in the waiting room,” Swiss Economy Minister Doris Leuthard said in a statement.

She said the exclusion of some countries was “very difficult for me to accept.”
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