Canada’s chief agriculture trade negotiator is certain the current
round of World Trade Organization negotiations will not end the way the
last one did nine years ago.
Then, after seven tortuous years of talks that always seemed on the
brink of collapse over agricultural rules, the United States and
European Union got together at London’s Blair House. The two powers
hammered out an agreement that opened world markets a bit while
allowing them to keep most of their subsidies. They then came back to
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Geneva and said to the other 130 countries – take it or leave it.
The world grumbled and took it, believing promises that everyone would
benefit.
Instead, developed world farmers kept their subsidies while trade from
developing countries has barely increased and millions of developing
world farmers have been put out of business.
“Let’s face it,” said Agriculture Canada trade negotiator Suzanne Vinet
last week at a conference about whether the latest WTO negotiating
round can help poor, small developing world farmers. “The last deal did
not produce equal benefits. This negotiation is about helping
development.”
Could another Blair House agreement be possible, she was asked.
“The U.S. and Europe will try to make a deal. That is their nature,”
she said. “But this time, they will have to sell it to developing
countries and not just present it. I don’t see it.”
In fact Vinet, agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief and trade department
officials were united in saying this is a trade negotiation like no
other. Developing world countries represent the majority of WTO
countries and they have made it clear that there will be no deal if
they are not benefiting.
When the negotiation was launched a year ago in Qatar, it was approved
by poor countries only because they were promised it would be a
“development round” and not just increase the access for rich countries.
For poorer countries to benefit, they want a deal on agriculture. It is
for many the main economic sector capable of growing, generating export
income and displacing costly imports.
But while Canada, the Cairns Group, the U.S., the EU and most powerful
WTO countries say they support the developing world agenda, many of its
demands are being greeted skeptically by trade negotiators, including
Canada’s.
“This negotiation is not about fixing inequities by creating new ones,”
said Vinet.
A year into the negotiations and less than five months before the
outline of a settlement is supposed to emerge, serious disputes remain.
Like many other governments, Canada’s negotiators are being pushed by
domestic farmers to protect their interests. In Canada’s case, it means
pressure from export sectors to tear down trade barriers and from
supply-managed industries to preserve border tariffs that protect them.
At the core of developing world positions are demands that challenge
both of those domestic interests.
Developing countries and their developed-world allies are pressing for
a “development box:”
- Developing countries would maintain or even increase tariff
protections against cheap foreign product while insisting that
rich-country subsidies be slashed.
- Developing countries that could afford it would be allowed to
maintain or increase support for farmers while developed countries
would have to decrease support.
- Developing countries would be able to exempt some strategic crops
from subsidy and trade rules.
- A principle of “special and differential treatment” would allow poor
countries to phase in trade and subsidy reform at a much slower pace
than the developed world.
The basis of the demands is that while rich countries have been able to
support and protect their farmers and write trade rules to allow
support to continue, poor countries have not been able to afford farm
subsidies and have been forced by past agreements to open their markets.
Now, they need some catch-up time and the tools to protect themselves
from unfair competition. While trade agreements usually decrease tariff
protections, tariffs often are the only tool poor countries have to
defend their industries and to raise money for the government.
Vinet exposed the complexity by insisting that Canada is a natural ally
of the developing world while still needing to defend Canadian trade
interests.
And she made a point that won broad agreement at the conference.
Those arguing for special concessions for developing countries must
define their group, because not all developing countries are equal.
Vinet said Canada would not agree to special deals for countries like
Argentina and Brazil, officially part of the developing world but also
significant agricultural producers and competitors of Canada.
“Switching one unfair trading system for another unfair trading system
is not the answer for Canadian farmers,” she said
