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In a
review of the
�Big Picture� Issues at the Cancun
Ministerial on
September 10-14, David Woods, the former WTO spokesman, said
that with governments deadlocked over agriculture it was
difficult to foresee a worthwhile agreement on how to secure
traction in the Doha Round negotiations as a whole. He was
speaking on Monday (September) at a trade policy roundtable
in Washington.
Whatever
emerged, said Clayton Yeutter, former U.S. Secretary of
Agriculture and earlier the U.S. Trade Representative, the
heavy lifting lies ahead where agriculture is concerned,
with much depending on the Cairns Group of smaller
agricultural-exporting countries led by Australia and Brazil
(click
here for Ambassador
Yeutter�s comment).
Hugh
Corbet, President of the Cordell Hull Institute, wrote in a
paper on
Breaking the Impasse over Agriculture
that with the confusion among governments over the purpose
of the Doha Round negotiations and the WTO system itself, it
was hardly surprising that the major players are at cross
purposes. An effort has to be made to reflect on the
seriousness of the situation with a view to lifting sights,
but that is not likely to happen in the short run, so
perhaps the crisis has to run its course with a view to
re-launching the negotiations after the U.S. presidential
elections next year.
The
roundtable meeting was the second in the Institute�s series
on the Cancun ministerial meeting. The first was on August
26 when Richard Eglin, Director of Trade & Finance at the
WTO Secretariat, presented a paper on
Extending the WTO System to Investment.
The next two will review the outcome of the ministerial.
The
Institute�s Trade Policy Roundtable is hosted by a group of
Washington law firms. |
