WTO ag chairman summoned to New Zealand
June 07, 2011 | 07:37 PM | Filed in: Trade
By JERRY HAGSTROM
In new signals of the dire prospects for the decade-old Doha round of trade talks, the New Zealand government has summoned home David Walker, the ambassador who has been chairing negotiations, while Clayton Yeutter, a former U.S. trade representative and agriculture secretary, said today that the Doha round should be allowed to die, but will probably linger on.
Radio New Zealand reported that New Zealand Trade Minister Tom Groser, a previous chairman of the World Trade Organization agriculture committee, recalled Walker on Monday New Zealand time, although the report was published on its website today.
Groser said he was recalling Walker because the state of the talks, launched in 2001, is so uncertain, the radio channel reported, and added that WTO Director General Pascal Lamy’s proposal for a smaller agreement on less contentious issues is no guarantee of success.
Meanwhile, in Washington, Yeutter noted at a seminar that former U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab wrote recently that the Doha round is “doomed.”
“I happen to fundamentally agree,” Yeutter said, although he added he believes there are so many people in public life with a stake in the Doha round that trade negotiators will not kill it.
“We’ll have more debate in 2013,” Yeutter said at a seminar sponsored by the International Food Policy Research Institute.
Yeutter did not provide details on his views on why the Doha round is doomed, but his comments are important because he has generally been an enthusiastic supporter of trade negotiations. He served as U.S. trade representative in the Reagan administration from 1985-88.
In that job, he negotiated the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement, the precursor to the North American Free Trade Agreement, and helped launch the Uruguay round, which was the first round to encompass agriculture. The round also culminated in the creation of the World Trade Organization. He became Agriculture secretary in 1989 and served in that post until 1991 when he was elected Republican National Committee chairman. He also served President Bush as a White House counselor.
Schwab, who served under President George W. Bush between 2003 and 2006, wrote in the May/June issue of _Foreign Affairs_ that “It is time for the international community to recognize that the Doha Round is doomed.”
Schwab, now a professor at the University of Maryland and a strategic adviser to Mayer Brown, LLP, followed up her article with a May 24 speech at the Peterson Institute for International Economics at which she said that the WTO should move to a new agenda.
Walker’s summons home and Yeutter’s and Schwab’s comments came as government representatives in Geneva are struggling with Lamy’s proposal for a smaller limited agreement. In a May 31 speech at a WTO Trade Negotiating Committee meeting, U.S. Ambassador to the WTO Michael Punke said the United States is “fully committed to this exploration of options,” but added that he saw many difficulties ahead.
Punke noted that representatives from other countries still want to limit cotton subsidies and that the United States had agreed to reduce them faster than the rest of the Doha round agenda.
“We are now in a new context, with no generally agreed formula and no generally applicable period of time,” Punke said. “Our discussion must recognize this new and starkly different context.”
He also said that any talks about cotton “must be a comprehensive discussion about all forms of market distorting practices in all three pillars. We would need to discuss both direct subsidization and other practices such as import licenses, sliding tariff scales, and reserves management – that produce very substantial levels of effective support for domestic cotton producers.”
Finally, he said, “If people wish to discuss cotton, everyone’s cotton programs must be on the table. And this will require a degree of transparency that is sorely lacking.”
Punke also spoke on the issue of allowing goods from the least developed countries into the United States duty-free and quota-free.
“Once again, we cannot divorce a critical issue like duty-free quota-free from its original context,” he said. “The United States has always discussed this issue in the context of a broadly ambitious Doha outcome. The situation today is different. The United States is not pulling issues off the table, but neither can we ignore the dramatic shift in context. All of us are struggling to determine where new balance points lie.”
In new signals of the dire prospects for the decade-old Doha round of trade talks, the New Zealand government has summoned home David Walker, the ambassador who has been chairing negotiations, while Clayton Yeutter, a former U.S. trade representative and agriculture secretary, said today that the Doha round should be allowed to die, but will probably linger on.
Radio New Zealand reported that New Zealand Trade Minister Tom Groser, a previous chairman of the World Trade Organization agriculture committee, recalled Walker on Monday New Zealand time, although the report was published on its website today.
Groser said he was recalling Walker because the state of the talks, launched in 2001, is so uncertain, the radio channel reported, and added that WTO Director General Pascal Lamy’s proposal for a smaller agreement on less contentious issues is no guarantee of success.
Meanwhile, in Washington, Yeutter noted at a seminar that former U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab wrote recently that the Doha round is “doomed.”
“I happen to fundamentally agree,” Yeutter said, although he added he believes there are so many people in public life with a stake in the Doha round that trade negotiators will not kill it.
“We’ll have more debate in 2013,” Yeutter said at a seminar sponsored by the International Food Policy Research Institute.
Yeutter did not provide details on his views on why the Doha round is doomed, but his comments are important because he has generally been an enthusiastic supporter of trade negotiations. He served as U.S. trade representative in the Reagan administration from 1985-88.
In that job, he negotiated the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement, the precursor to the North American Free Trade Agreement, and helped launch the Uruguay round, which was the first round to encompass agriculture. The round also culminated in the creation of the World Trade Organization. He became Agriculture secretary in 1989 and served in that post until 1991 when he was elected Republican National Committee chairman. He also served President Bush as a White House counselor.
Schwab, who served under President George W. Bush between 2003 and 2006, wrote in the May/June issue of _Foreign Affairs_ that “It is time for the international community to recognize that the Doha Round is doomed.”
Schwab, now a professor at the University of Maryland and a strategic adviser to Mayer Brown, LLP, followed up her article with a May 24 speech at the Peterson Institute for International Economics at which she said that the WTO should move to a new agenda.
Walker’s summons home and Yeutter’s and Schwab’s comments came as government representatives in Geneva are struggling with Lamy’s proposal for a smaller limited agreement. In a May 31 speech at a WTO Trade Negotiating Committee meeting, U.S. Ambassador to the WTO Michael Punke said the United States is “fully committed to this exploration of options,” but added that he saw many difficulties ahead.
Punke noted that representatives from other countries still want to limit cotton subsidies and that the United States had agreed to reduce them faster than the rest of the Doha round agenda.
“We are now in a new context, with no generally agreed formula and no generally applicable period of time,” Punke said. “Our discussion must recognize this new and starkly different context.”
He also said that any talks about cotton “must be a comprehensive discussion about all forms of market distorting practices in all three pillars. We would need to discuss both direct subsidization and other practices such as import licenses, sliding tariff scales, and reserves management – that produce very substantial levels of effective support for domestic cotton producers.”
Finally, he said, “If people wish to discuss cotton, everyone’s cotton programs must be on the table. And this will require a degree of transparency that is sorely lacking.”
Punke also spoke on the issue of allowing goods from the least developed countries into the United States duty-free and quota-free.
“Once again, we cannot divorce a critical issue like duty-free quota-free from its original context,” he said. “The United States has always discussed this issue in the context of a broadly ambitious Doha outcome. The situation today is different. The United States is not pulling issues off the table, but neither can we ignore the dramatic shift in context. All of us are struggling to determine where new balance points lie.”
