Those trade ministers mean business!!
Wow, some real progress was made at the Davos Economic Forum for pushing the Doha round of trade talks towards completion. Why, Alan Beattie reports for the Financial Times that trade ministers have agree to…. a new deadline: Ministers on Saturday set themselves a tight new deadline of the end of April to come up ...
Wow, some real progress was made at the Davos Economic Forum for pushing the Doha round of trade talks towards completion. Why, Alan Beattie reports for the Financial Times that trade ministers have agree to.... a new deadline: Ministers on Saturday set themselves a tight new deadline of the end of April to come up with a framework deal under the faltering Doha round of global trade talks. Meeting at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, around 25 trade ministers from the World Trade Organisation?s 149 member countries promised that they would start making the key trade-offs that will underpin the final agreement. The end-April target for agreeing the numerical formulas that will cut tariffs will require a huge acceleration in the talks, which started in 2001. ?It is not going to happen unless there is a significant change in style, pace and content,? said Rachid Mohammed Rachid, the Egyptian minister who co-ordinates African countries in the talks. Well, thank God -- the real problem with this round of trade talks had been the lack of deadlines. Seriously, Bloomberg's Rich Miller provides some detail on what needs to be done: Among their goals are resolving 33 differences over agricultural subsidies and 15 questions on industrial products by April 30th. "We've got a big number of topics to be addressed,'' Pascal Lamy, director general of the WTO, told reporters in Davos. ``Most of that has to be done in the first half of this year.'' U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman told reporters that ministers agreed they needed to act together to strike a deal rather than wait for each to move first. "They all know they have to move,'' said Lamy. ``That is the widest secret here.'' Indian Minister of Commerce Kamal Nath said the onus should be on the U.S. and Europe to slash agricultural subsidies which are hurting developing nations. "The European Union and U.S. must move,'' he said. "Developing countries cannot accept any more paying a price for the U.S. and EU to stop doing what they shouldn't be doing anyway.'' Portman is correct about the need for cross-issue linkage -- but until the ministers in Nath's camp acknowledge this fact, I'm not holding my breath waiting for progress.
Wow, some real progress was made at the Davos Economic Forum for pushing the Doha round of trade talks towards completion. Why, Alan Beattie reports for the Financial Times that trade ministers have agree to…. a new deadline:
Ministers on Saturday set themselves a tight new deadline of the end of April to come up with a framework deal under the faltering Doha round of global trade talks. Meeting at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, around 25 trade ministers from the World Trade Organisation?s 149 member countries promised that they would start making the key trade-offs that will underpin the final agreement. The end-April target for agreeing the numerical formulas that will cut tariffs will require a huge acceleration in the talks, which started in 2001. ?It is not going to happen unless there is a significant change in style, pace and content,? said Rachid Mohammed Rachid, the Egyptian minister who co-ordinates African countries in the talks.
Well, thank God — the real problem with this round of trade talks had been the lack of deadlines. Seriously, Bloomberg’s Rich Miller provides some detail on what needs to be done:
Among their goals are resolving 33 differences over agricultural subsidies and 15 questions on industrial products by April 30th. “We’ve got a big number of topics to be addressed,” Pascal Lamy, director general of the WTO, told reporters in Davos. “Most of that has to be done in the first half of this year.” U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman told reporters that ministers agreed they needed to act together to strike a deal rather than wait for each to move first. “They all know they have to move,” said Lamy. “That is the widest secret here.” Indian Minister of Commerce Kamal Nath said the onus should be on the U.S. and Europe to slash agricultural subsidies which are hurting developing nations. “The European Union and U.S. must move,” he said. “Developing countries cannot accept any more paying a price for the U.S. and EU to stop doing what they shouldn’t be doing anyway.”
Portman is correct about the need for cross-issue linkage — but until the ministers in Nath’s camp acknowledge this fact, I’m not holding my breath waiting for progress.
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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