Sticking to Positions

Geneva Doha Development Agenda key players the United States, the European Union, Brazil, India and the Group-of-10 defensive coalition stuck tight to their positions yesterday on Doha Development Agenda agriculture and nonagricultural market access (see related report this issue).

Trade ministers from some 60 countries who gathered here yesterday witnessed no change in the negotiating positions of key members suggesting to some that the negotiations this week will go nowhere.

The United States yesterday conveyed in unmistakable terms that without clarity in the difficult area of farm market access especially in regard to the treatment of "sensitive products" for industrialized countries and "special products" of developing countries it would be difficult for Washington to accept any agreement, said one trade minister. US Trade Representative Susan Schwab who arrived here on Wednesday evening met informally with some key trading partners. She is understood to have conveyed that the market access pillar particularly the loopholes in the treatment of "sensitive products" and "special products" need to be addressed first for the modalities negotiations to proceed.

US officials told reporters that Washington has already committed to ambitious cuts in trade-distorting agriculture spending in its proposal from last October by agreeing to 60-percent reductions in its Aggregate Measurement of Support, a reduction in the "blue box" below 2.5 percent and halving the "de minimis" cap from 5 percent of production to 2.5 percent. The US officials insisted it is wrong for others to dismiss the "bold" US offer. The biggest gains, they insisted, are in market access where others have not matched the United States.

But the US stance yesterday was summarily dismissed by the European Union and the Group-of-20 coalition. They agreed that Washington has to indicate how much further it will go in cutting domestic programs which now run well over $20 billion annually. "I have the impression that the gaps have actually widened or at least have become more rigid," said Brazilian foreign minister Celso Amorim at a press conference yesterday.

European Union farm commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel told journalists that US movement in domestic supports is crucial for any deal. That, she suggested, must be discussed before ministers can move to market access. Japanese agriculture minister Shoichi Nakagawa said the United States must move on domestic supports to bring progress.

Movement on domestic supports is the "key" that will unlock the negotiations in agriculture, said a G-20 statement released yesterday.