Farmers should not count on a world trade deal to pull them out of the economic mire anytime soon.
A prominent Canadian trade consultant said hope is slight that stalled world trade talks will get back on track for at least three years.
Peter Clark, an Ottawa consultant who does work for Canada’s supply management agencies, said in a conference call from Geneva, Switzerland, there is little optimism about serious negotiations until after the 2008 presidential election in the United States.
“It (the World Trade Organization negotiating round) may not be dead, but it will take a long time to finish,” he said.
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Negotiators are leaving the most recent trade talks in Geneva “a bit like rats leaving a sinking ship, although I wouldn’t want to put it that way,” Clark said.
Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Bob Friesen, on the same call and at the same Geneva meeting, said the stalemate between the U.S. and the European Union remains the crucial block in the talks.
“It really requires some movement from them,” he said.
Friesen was at a meeting of Cairns Group middle-level trading nations in Australia the previous week where there was a call for a renewal of WTO talks.
Canada disagrees with the Cairns consensus on the need to reduce all tariffs, including over-quota tariffs that protect Canada’s supply managed sectors in the egg, poultry and dairy industries. But it supports the group’s call for a re-launch of the talks and an ambitious outcome that includes deep subsidy and trade barrier cuts.
Friesen said there is general agreement that a new WTO deal is needed.
“The importance of a successful round is largely undisputed.”
Meanwhile, WTO director general Pascal Lamy used speeches last week to insist that the negotiation, suspended in July because of divisions between negotiators, can be salvaged if countries recognize the cost of failure.
