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US farm groups jittery over India anti-WTO remarks

US farm groups, eager to see the launch of global trade negotiations in November, are nervously eyeing growing negative rhetoric from India and other developing countries toward conducting such talks.

On Thursday, seven south Asian nations, including India and Pakistan, issued a statement marking their opposition to new World Trade Organisation negotiations.

The declaration followed remarks last week by Commerce Minister Murasoli Maran, who said that a new WTO trade negotiating round should not start until the rich, developed countries live up to past promises.

Of particular concern to the developing countries is greater access to foreign agriculture and textile markets.

The developing countries' statements are causing "a little bit of a scare," said Audrae Erickson, international trade policy specialist for the American Farm Bureau, the largest US agriculture organisation.

Erickson, in an interview on Thursday, added that with the world's trade ministers scheduled to convene November 9 in Doha, Qatar, to launch a new trade round, "it's so late in the game" for fundamental differences between the developed and developing countries.

"There are eight hard weeks of negotiating" ahead, Erickson said, in preparation for the Doha meeting. "It's disconcerting the amount of work to be done."

Trade ministers realise that in coming weeks the developing countries' concerns must somehow be addressed, since the WTO operates by consensus and a new trade round cannot be launched without their consent.

Optimism nevertheless

Despite India's public utterances against a trade round, aides to US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick continue to insist progress is being made toward a successful meeting in Doha.

Zoellick's predecessor, Charlene Barshefsky, apparently is not so sure. In an interview with a Finnish magazine, former President Bill Clinton's top trade negotiator questioned whether there will be enough agreement between industrial and developing countries to launch a trade round.

If not, she said trade ministers in Doha should merely agree to keep trying over the next 18 months or so, rather than be tarred with a failed meeting, like the one in Seattle in 1999.

Erickson, along with other US agriculture commodity groups, acknowledge it is not surprising to hear dour remarks from the developing world at this stage in the process.

In part, those remarks are time-tested negotiating tactics aimed at entering a ministerial meeting with the strongest possible hand.

Chuck Lambert, an economist and trade specialist for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, said India's recent remarks provide "reason for concern."

But he said there is "still time" in pre-ministerial work to patch the divide among WTO members.

US Congress holds key?

One of the most important things the United States could do, Lambert said, is congressional passage of a trade promotion authority bill that does not contain overly stringent labor and environmental language that could scare off developing nations.

Congress might vote this fall on trade promotion authority, also known as "fast-track," legislation, which gives the president greater latitude in negotiating trade deals.

Many Democrats are withholding their support unless language is stitched into the legislation to improve global labor and environmental protections through trade agreements.

Alan Tracy, president of the US Wheat Associates, an export market development group, acknowledged "there are some problems that remain" in enforcing existing trade rules that would benefit developing countries.

But referring to India and other developing countries, Tracy added, "How do you go about fixing those problems unless you come to the negotiating table."

Like Lambert, Tracy said "the most import single thing (in coming weeks) is for the United States to pass a workable trade promotion authority bill that will send a signal to the world that the Congress is prepared to support (trade) negotiations."

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