Last-ditch trade talks collapse in acrimony
The world trade talks that were supposed to relieve poverty and improve economic growth collapsed into indefinite suspension yesterday, after nearly five years of protracted wrangling.
A last-ditch meeting in Geneva of the six core "Doha round" negotiators - India, Brazil, the US, EU Japan and Australia - broke up amid recriminations over irreconcilable differences about farm liberalisation. The US continued to argue for big cuts in farm import tariffs to open up markets for its farmers, a demand fiercely rejected by the European Union, Japan and India, who said America had first to go further in offering to cut agricultural subsidies.
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The Doha round, which began in November 2001, will now enter indefinite suspension unless and until a consensus within the World Trade Organisation's 149 member countries can be found to revive it.
The White House's authority from the US Congress to negotiate trade deals expires next year. Most experts and officials think Congress unlikely to renew that authority, rendering any near-term agreement impossible.
The amount of work required to complete an agreement meant that the end of this month was in effect a deadline for a deal.
Four of the six countries present rounded on the US as the culprit for the collapse in the talks, which started on Sunday and ended yesterday. Peter Mandelson, EU trade commissioner, told the Financial Times: "If the US continues to demand dollar-for-dollar compensation in market access [cutting tariffs] for reducing domestic support, no one in the developing world will ever buy that and the EU will not either." Even Brazil, which shares some of the US's interest in reducing farm tariffs, identified US intransigence on subsidies as the blockage that prevented an agreement.
Kamal Nath, the Indian trade minister, said of the US: "Everybody put something on the table except one country who said 'we can't see anything on the table'."
The US has become increasingly frustratedby what it says is the gutting of its proposals to cut farm tariffs. Rich WTO members such as the EU, Japan and Switzerland, and poorer countries such as India, Indonesia and the Philippines, have sought to protect a wide range of agricultural products from tariff cuts.
Susan Schwab, US trade representative, said such exemptions would defeat the object of the talks, to create trade flows. "As we went through the layers of loopholes . . . we discovered that a couple of our trading partners were more interested in loopholes than market access," she said.
Pascal Lamy, WTO director-general, said the failure would "send out a strong negative signal for the future of the world economy amidst the danger of a resurgence of protectionism".
The suspension has brought one of the darkest days to the WTO since its creation in 1995.
多哈全球贸易谈判破裂
一路不顺的“多哈回合(Doha round)”贸易谈判昨日陷入无限期中止状态。此前，主要参与国为挽救谈判而作出的最后努力在互相责难之中宣告失败。
此轮谈判的6个核心谈判方（印度、巴西、美国、欧盟、日本和澳大利亚）在日内瓦召开紧急会议，但各方在农业自由化问题上存在无法协调的分歧，导致谈判破裂。在谈判中，美国仍要求大幅削减农业进口关税，以向美国农民开放市场；而欧盟、日本和印度却强烈反对这一要求，表示美国必须首先进一步削减农业补贴。
除非世贸组织(WTO)的149个成员能够达成共识重启谈判，否则始于2001年11月的多哈回合谈判将陷入无限期中止状态。美国国会授予白宫的贸易谈判授权将于明年到期，这意味着本月底实际上是世贸组织就农产品和制造业产品达成协议的最终期限。多数专家及官员认为，美国国会不可能延长授权，因此近期内没有可能达成任何协议。
此次谈判于周日开始，并于昨日结束。在参加谈判的6国之中，有4个国家将谈判失败的主要原因归咎于美国。欧盟贸易专员彼得?曼德尔森(Peter Mandelson)向英国《金融时报》表示：“如果美国继续要求完全对等的补偿，以市场准入（削减关税）换取美国减少农业补贴的话，没有哪个发展中国家会接受这一点，欧盟也不会。”甚至支持削减农产品关税的巴西也认为，美国在农业补贴方面的不妥协态度阻碍了各方达成协议。
印度商业和工业部长卡迈勒?纳特(Kamal Nath)谈到美国时表示：“所有国家都作出了一些让步，只有一个国家例外，它声称‘我们看不到任何让步’。”
美国则对谈判越来越感到失望，声称美国提出的削减农产品关税的提议被掏空了核心内容。欧盟、日本和瑞士等富有的世贸组织成员国，以及印度、印尼和菲律宾等较贫穷的成员国，一直试图将大量农产品排除在关税削减清单之外。
美国贸易代表苏珊?施瓦布(Susan Schwab)表示，这些豁免项目将会挫伤此轮谈判“创造新的贸易流”的目标。她表示：“当我们一一检查一些漏洞时……我们发现，一些谈判伙伴对漏洞的兴趣比市场准入更大。”
上周末在圣彼得堡召开的八国集团(G8)会议，曾为本轮贸易谈判顺利进行燃起新的希望。美国总统乔治?布什(George W. Bush)和欧盟委员会(European Commission)主席若泽?曼努埃尔?巴罗佐(Jose Manuel Barroso)均承诺，将赋予谈判代表更多灵活性。
世贸组织成立于1995年，是一个全球贸易谈判和仲裁体制。此次谈判中断，令该组织陷入自成立以来最黑暗的日子之一。
