An Urgent Time for Global Trade

Since they began, the negotiations have missed deadline after deadline because of persistent disputes between rich and poor nations over the relative concessions required.

The outcome of last week’s G8 summit was met with a lukewarm response. Critics said there had been a lack of progress with no new timetables for action or targets being set.

America

Despite its central role in launching the Doha round of global trade talks, the US has been criticized for preventing a Doha deal, by demanding too much liberalization from other countries while offering too little. In other words, US has been accused of setting its ambitions too high.

The US, for instance, has set the bar to cut tariff barriers by an average of 66 percent. The EU's offer was 39 per cent and the big emerging economies including Brazil, China and India desired a 54 percent cut from rich countries.

The US is also under fire from developing countries over subsidies paid to domestic farmers. On the other hand, US legislators have proposed to reform, by cutting their average tariffs on agricultural imports by 61 percent and eliminating all its trade-distorting subsidies, only if other countries were willing to put reform proposals on the table and deliver overseas market access, said Jason Hafemeister, the lead United States Trade Representative official for the WTO agriculture talks, according to AFP.

The Chief Responsibility Lies Here

"The chief responsibility lies here," declared the WTO in an article on its website’s main page this week.

WTO chief Pascal Lamy, who was in St Petersburg, told the G8 leaders on Monday that his consultations with the six countries had revealed scope for only "marginal" movement.

He added that the chief political responsibility remained with the members present at the meeting. Suggesting that the differences arise from political problem, rather than technical, he asked negotiating parties to ponder the cost of failure against 'a few billions' to fix the problem.