The World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Doha round food trade talks collapsed today (24 July), with diplomats floundering about how to recover from damaging political deadlock.
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European Union (EU) trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson has bluntly blamed the Americans for refusing to yield on reducing farm production subsidies. Following a fruitless meeting of the key G6 group at the WTO (the US, the EU, Japan, Brazil, India and Australia), Mandelson said: “The United States was unwilling to accept, or indeed to acknowledge, the flexibility being shown by others in the room.”
In reply, diplomats say US trade representative Susan Schwab blamed the EU and India, although she did not name them. Heads of delegations of the trade negotiations committee, chaired by WTO director general Pascal Lamy, are now debating tactics.
Mandelson has said the talks will be “suspended”, and although the committee may shy from such blunt language, no food trade talks will be staged until September at the earliest, and these could be exploratory meetings.
As a result, the WTO’s December deadline for completing the talks is hanging by a thread, and the risk of President Bush having to ask Congress to extend his negotiating mandate, which expires in mid-2007, now looms large.
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