Emerging economies spurn US move at advancing WTO talks
July 23, 2008 “These cuts will deliver effective and significant reductions in trade distorting domestic support,” she told journalists.
“These reductions are not offered in isolation and must be accompanied by significant market openings” in both agriculture and industrial products, she insisted.
The US move came after an abortive attempt by EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson to jolt the talks into movement on Monday with an announcement that the European Union was now ready to extend tariff cuts on agricultural products to 60 percent from 54 percent.
But even Mandelson’s fellow EU commissioner Mariann Fischer-Boel said the offer was “nothing new” and Brazil dismissed it as “propaganda.”
The EU, as is the United States, is linking concessions in farm trade to steps by emerging countries to take in more manufactured goods.
Argentine negotiator Nestor Stancanelli said he saw “real negotiations” as beginning only Tuesday, pointing to the so-called NAMA component " relating to industrial products " as a main sticking point.
“The NAMA text, for many of us, does not reflect the positions of many members ... The NAMA text is presented as if it were already a result,” he said.
The absence of Indian Commerce Minister Kamal Nath, an important participant who is in New Delhi where the government faces a no-confidence vote later on Tuesday, was further hampering the process here.
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