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United states offers to cut farm subsidies Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyID=2006-06-22T163918Z_01_WAT005891_RTRUKOC_0_US-TRADE-WTO-AGRICULTURE-USA.xmlhttp://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyID=2006-06-22T163918Z_01_WAT005891_RTRUKOC_0_US-TRADE-WTO-AGRICULTURE-USA.xml
US says still wants others to match its WTO farm plan
Thu Jun 22, 2006 12:39 PM ET
By Sophie Walker
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States, under pressure to unblock jammed world trade talks, said on Thursday it was still trying to get other countries to match its plan for cracking open farm markets and remained "fully committed" to its objectives.
Neena Moorjani, spokeswoman for the office of the U.S. Trade Representative, said Washington was still waiting for other WTO member countries to meet its level of ambition in terms of extensive cuts in tariffs on agricultural goods.
"Recent press reports suggest that the U.S. government may be ready to settle and lower ambition to conclude the Doha talks. We want Doha to succeed but the U.S. remains fully committed to our objectives to conclude an ambitious trade round," Moorjani said in a statement.
A report in specialist publication Inside U.S. Trade said Washington was prepared to scale back its demands for average farm tariff cuts of 66 percent and move closer to a proposal by the G20 developing countries for average cuts of 54 percent.
After four-and-a-half years of negotiations, the Doha round of world trade talks is deemed to be at the point where it could fail or succeed in the next six weeks.
The U.S. has offered to make deep cuts in its domestic farm subsidies, but only if other countries slash their tariffs on farm and manufactured goods and also open their markets to more international services companies.
But it is coming under pressure from the European Union and the G20 to offer deeper domestic subsidy cuts and reconsider its market access demands, which Brussels calls unrealistic.
"The U.S. proposal in agriculture is the only one on the table that actually delivers on the Doha mandate of substantial improvement in market access and we're trying to get others to match our vision," Moorjani said.
"The United States will not accept an outcome, nor put forward any proposal, that falls short of creating new trade flows in agriculture, industrial goods and services."
U.S. trade officials meet regularly with farm and commodity groups to give feedback on the WTO negotiations. According to sources at a meeting several weeks ago, farm groups reacted negatively to USTR's overtures about upping its offer from 60 percent to a 70 percent cut in trade-distorting subsidies.
One industry source said on Thursday as far as he was aware USTR had not changed its negotiating stance.
"We had a meeting with USTR a week ago and they said they are not going to change the offer. There's no reason for us to go ahead with an offer that has no political viability," the source said.
Some U.S. farm lawmakers have said they will reject any Doha deal that does not deliver significant access to new markets to offset any cuts in subsidies. But other WTO countries say the U.S. will have to show some flexibility.
"The EU and the United States must converge. Let the U.S. extract what it can from the EU (on market access), and I'll do two-thirds of that," India's commerce and industry minister Kamal Nath told a seminar in Washington on Thursday.
U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab met with Senate Finance Chairman Sen. Charles Grassley first thing on Thursday. When asked, coming out of that meeting, if the United States showed any new flexibility on farm subsidies and tariffs in a meeting on Monday with European Union Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson, Schwab replied: "No."
President George W. Bush, attending a U.S.-EU summit earlier this week, said he thought it was still possible to get a WTO deal.
Asked whether the U.S. had presented a new farm offer, National Security Advisor Steve Hadley told reporters Thursday: "Look, there's going to be a negotiating process, obviously, to get this done. But where we are now is what the president has made is a bold proposal and what we're looking for is a bold proposal back."
(Additional reporting by Doug Palmer and Steve Holland)
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