The most recent critic is Robert Zoellik from his post as head of the World Bank. He was the U.S. Trade Representative from 2001 to 2005 when the talks failed to reach a deal by the original 2005 deadline.
Zoellik says the U.S. should eliminate its tariff on ethanol, make deeper cuts to farm subsidies and scrap some of its contentious anti-dumping measures.
That's an agenda that would be welcomed across the board by Canadian farmers.
Michael Punke, U.S. Ambassador to the World Trade Organization, countered by saying the U.S. has been trying to negotiate a deal.
“Our goal has been not just any deal, but a good deal,” Punke said in Geneva.
That translates into a refusal by the Democrats to reform the U.S. farm subsidies, trade barriers and notorious anti-dumping regime that has done enormous damage to Canada's farmers.
The U.S. has been insisting that China, India and Brazil make concessions to allow easier access to its markets. They have their heels totally dug in, especially India. Not only is it resisting pressure to open its financial and service sectors to some competition, but also it won't budge on protection for its agriculture and food sectors.
When the Doha Round began, the focus was on a better agricultural deal for Third World countries and at the time, that included China, India and Brazil. Since then their economies have been expanding and those countries have begun to aggressively export agricultural and food commodities, including pickles from India to Canada, corn, soybeans, beef, pork and chicken from Brazil and many processed foods from China to Canada.
Zoellik made no mention of Canada or Europe in his criticisms about the stalled negotiations. He said the U.S. needs to become the leader.
An impasse during the previous round of negotiations, called the Uruguay Round, was broken by a so-called “kitchen meeting” among the U.S., Europe and Japan.
It featured the biggest deal for agriculture in the history of world trade negotiations, but it failed to drastically cut domestic farm subsidies and import barriers, so it fell short of helping the world’s poor.
Import barriers were all converted to tariffs which, at the time, appeared to make it easier to reduce those barriers during future negotiations. In practice, Canada, as an example, has insisted on keeping some of the world’s highest tariffs for dairy and poultry and U.S. and European farm subsidies remain greater than the money they spend on international aid.
There has also been an increase in trade barriers related to food safety and quality, including a number of Chinese and Russian bans on chicken and pork from U.S. and Canadian packing plants. The bans make trade uncertain and companies therefore insist on bigger margins when they consider exports to those countries.
Ironically, farm subsidies and trade barriers remain a stumbling block despite record-high commodity prices and political unrest in countries where citizens budgets are being squeezed.
