Early settlement of WTO farm deal unlikely: US

GENEVA: A top US trade official on Friday played down the idea a WTO ministerial meeting at the end of June was the deadline for a deal on global farm trade, saying only that a pact must come in the ‘next several weeks’.

World Trade Organisation (WTO) Director-General Pascal Lamy wants ministers to agree draft deals — or ’modalities’ — on industrial and agricultural goods at a meeting starting June 29.

But Jason Hafemeister, director for US agriculture negotiations, suggested the WTO had more time for accords crucial to concluding its Doha round of free trade negotiations, including issues such as services, by the end of the year.

“Conventional wisdom is that we have got to make substantial progress, certainly pass modalities, by this summer,” Hafemeister told journalists, adding “Whether that is June or July, I am not particular.”

The official, who is in Geneva for near non-stop WTO talks on the farm dossier, said the US still needed the EU and developing countries to agree to deeper tariff cuts and greater market opening.

“Without market access we cannot have a balanced package in any saleable sense anywhere,” Hafemeister said. But he rejected criticism by the EU and developing countries of the US offer on farm subsidies, which they say does not go far enough.

Hafemeister said numbers circulated at the WTO suggesting there would be no real cuts were a ‘negotiating tactic’. Washington’s plan, which offers to reduce permitted spending on farm subsidies by 60%, would involve real reform of US agriculture spending, Hafemeister said.

As part of the build-up to the June 29 meeting, the chairmen of the farm and the industrial goods’ negotiating groups will present their respective draft texts aimed at helping narrow differences.

They had been due on June 19, but diplomats said the date was likely to slip to June 21. The end-year deadline for concluding the Doha round, which was launched in ‘01, is set by next year’s expiry of US presidential powers to negotiate trade deals without having to consult Congress every step of the way.