Progress for the Doha round?
Richard McGregor reports in the Financial Times about a potential breakthrough in the agricultural negotiations for the Doha round of world trade talks. Sounds great, until you get to the nitty-gritty of the proposal: The G20 proposal centres on a new five-tier tariff system for developed countries, setting uniform tariff cuts in each band, and ...
Richard McGregor reports in the Financial Times about a potential breakthrough in the agricultural negotiations for the Doha round of world trade talks. Sounds great, until you get to the nitty-gritty of the proposal:
Richard McGregor reports in the Financial Times about a potential breakthrough in the agricultural negotiations for the Doha round of world trade talks. Sounds great, until you get to the nitty-gritty of the proposal:
The G20 proposal centres on a new five-tier tariff system for developed countries, setting uniform tariff cuts in each band, and also capping the maximum tax on imports at 100 per cent. The plan offers greater leeway for developing countries, with a four-tiered system and a maximum tariff of 150 per cent. Mariann Fischer Boel, EU agriculture commissioner, said: ?We welcome the G20 proposal on market access.? Rob Portman, US trade representative, also backed the G20 plan as a potential basis for negotiations, saying: ?The US is prepared to move, and move to the middle.? The differences between the world’s two largest trading blocs remain substantial, with the EU proposing a variation on the G20 plan to give it greater flexibility to resist sharp tariff cuts. The EU is also demanding that the US put on the table a plan to reduce its domestic farm subsidies as part of any negotiating package, something that Mr Portman rejected yesterday as ?not realistic?. With only about two weeks to go before a framework is needed to allow time for the detailed and difficult negotiations ahead of Hong Kong, not everybody was optimistic about a genuine resolution to the impasse. ?I am pessimistic but I want to be proved wrong,? said Supachai Panitchpakdi,the WTO director-general. ?We have days. We don’t have weeks.? The G20 plan potentially faces stiff resistance from countries such as Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, which have tariffs on farm goods far higher than the caps set by the G20 proposal.
The scary thing is that what’s proposed represents liberalization of a sort — agriculture is so heavily protected and subsidized that it will take decades for complete liberalization…. if it ever happens. Supachai is more pessimistic about the overall progress of the Doha round. Click here for his statement from last week. Key paragraphs:
It is true that some progress has been made in certain areas of the negotiations. But let us be clear: this progress is nowhere near sufficient in terms of our critical path to Hong Kong, and it is not being seen in the key issues which would help unblock progress across the board. Overall, there seems to be a renewed sense of blockage and frustration. We are also seeing a resurgence of sterile debate about process, rather than negotiations on substance. I am afraid we have to face the facts. These negotiations are in trouble. Very little of the political support which has been shown at successive Ministerial meetings has been turned into concrete progress in the negotiating groups. Everyone has a generalized commitment to progress, but when it comes to the specifics, the familiar defensive positions take over.
Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner
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