Michael Forman
U.S. Trade Representative Michael Forman on Tuesday urged trade ministers from World Trade Organization countries gathered in Bali, an Indonesian island, to reach an agreement to move the Doha round of trade talks forward just as India, according to news report, has refused to budge on a food security proposal to which the United States has objected.

Analysts have said that if the trade ministers cannot conclude even a small agreement in the long stalled Doha round, it will be a signal that the WTO will lose its reputation as a negotiating forum and become only a trade court based on already-agreed rules. The WTO makes its decisions by consensus.

“By the time we leave here this week, the WTO will have entered a new era — one way or another,” Froman told the delegates in an opening plenary session, according to a statement released by his office.

“After two decades of collective frustration, a deal is right in front of us. The first multilateral agreement since the creation of the WTO is not just within reach; it is at hand, if only we take hold of it,” he said.

Although delegates were unable to finalize an agreement during negotiations in Geneva managed by Roberto Azevêdo, a Brazilian who is the new WTO director general, Froman noted that the ministers do have documents with which to work.

“Texts. Not ideas or concepts. Texts, representing hard-fought compromises among partners. On food security, TRQ [tariff rate quota] administration, export competition. On trade facilitation. And on development and LDC [least developed country] issues,” Froman said.

“Most of us understand all too well the consequences of failing to pull together now,” Froman continued. “Let us not sugar-coat reality: leaving Bali this week without an agreement would deal a debilitating blow to the WTO as a forum for multilateral negotiations. And if that happens, the unfortunate truth is that the loss will be felt most heavily by those members who can least afford it.”

“By definition, no country has gotten everything it wanted,” Froman said. “This package is certainly not all that we hoped to get out of a multilateral trade negotiation, but we respect the process that brought us to this point. The United States has negotiated hard, but we’ve also been flexible. We’ve made our fair share of compromises, and we stand by everything we agreed to with others.”

But India wants agreement that developing countries can subsidize farming in order to establish grain reserves, the BBC reported.

“Agriculture sustains millions of subsistence farmers. Their interests must be secured,” Indian Trade Minister Anand Sharma said. “For India, food security is non-negotiable.”

The United States has objected to the India proposal on the grounds that subsidized production and stockpiling encourages overproduction and low prices that hurt all farmers, including those in developing countries.