In late September, 20 years after their founding meeting in an Australian resort city, members of the Cairns Group of middle-level trading countries will gather where they started to try to find out if the coalition still is relevant in World Trade Organization talks.
The group of 18 countries, including Canada, has pushed for global trade rule changes that result in subsidy and tariff reductions and freer trade.
The Cairns Group was considered an important middle ground player during the 1986-94 Uruguay round of trade talks, often offering a compromise between the United States and the European Union. Cairns members pushed to see an end to an export subsidy trade war that the United States and European Union were waging at the time, sideswiping other countries in the process.
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However, the Cairns Group has been less influential in this trade round as developing countries have banded together in the G 20 group of nations to push their development agenda. Several key members of Cairns, notably Brazil, are also members of the G 20 and have been putting more energy into that group.
Australian agriculture minister Peter McGauran said in Ottawa last week the 20th anniversary reunion meeting in Cairns Sept. 20-22 will be a chance to take stock.
“There is no doubt that the G 20 has fractured the Cairns Group,” he said during a National Press Club appearance April 4. “But I believe the Cairns Group is still an organization of influence and relevance.”
In fact, at the end of March, the Cairns Group intervened in the talks to tell the WTO trade negotiating committee in Geneva that the looming end-of-April deadline should inspire negotiators to make more effort. The risk of failure was growing and it was unacceptable.
“A substantial and effective result on both market access and subsidies pillars is central to the success of the Doha Round,” the coalition said.
But Cairns has had problems beyond competition from G 20 and the development agenda.
It also has had internal tensions, often involving Canada, because many Cairns countries support a market access deal that forces cuts in all subsidies while Canada insists its over-quota tariffs that protect supply management should not be touched.
Canada has dissented from the Cairns market access proposal while Australia has led the Cairns demand for across-the-board tariff cuts.
The strongest unified Cairns position has been that all forms of export subsidy be ended, a result that could happen by 2013 if there is an overall WTO deal.
Members of the Cairns Group that will meet in September are Australia, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Paraguay, Philippines, South Africa, Thailand and Uruguay.
