SEATTLE, Wash. – The effort to launch a new round of world trade talks, aimed in part at reducing price-depressing agricultural subsidies, collapsed late Dec. 3 as countries remained divided.
Agriculture talks will start in Geneva, Switzerland in January because they are required under a 1994 agreement, but there are few prospects progress will be made without a broader negotiation. They will lack direction and political will.
Talks on launching the millennium round of World Trade Organization talks collapsed after four intense days when trade delegations locked horns inside and anti-WTO demonstrations outside turned Seattle into an armed camp.
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“This was a failure of governments,” United States trade representative Charlene Barshefsky told a late-night news conference Dec. 3 after announcing suspension of the talks. “Governments were not ready to take the leap.”
Canadian agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief, who spent the week promoting the Canadian view that a new round was needed to win approval to end export subsidies, reduce production-distorting domestic subsidies and lower market access barriers, said the breakdown was a setback.
“Obviously, this is very, very disappointing,” he said. “I thought a deal was possible here.”
Canadian farm leaders joined him in his dismay.
Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Bob Friesen said if some way is not found to negotiate a lowering of competitor subsidies, the Canadian government will come under pressure to start to match them.
“If Canada doesn’t get a substantial reduction in export subsidies and some movement on foreign domestic subsidies, it can expect pressure to start to respond to those subsidies with its own programs,” he said in Seattle.
“This is hugely disappointing,” said Saskatchewan Wheat Pool vice-president Marvin Shauf from his farm Dec. 4. He had left Seattle the previous day believing a deal to launch the trade talks was in the works.
“I thought we were making progress and even if talks do get going, this is a setback in timing.”
The official line from Barshefsky and WTO officials was that agriculture talks called for in the last world trade deal in 1994 will begin in Geneva next month and they will make progress.
“I think those talks will move because we made progress here,” she said.
Unfinished business
Progress included unfinished text that committed countries to negotiate lower market access barriers, a reduction in domestic subsidies and a move toward elimination of all export subsidies. There also would be negotiation on Europe’s view that farmers should be compensated for roles other than food production.
“That text is frozen on the table and will be the basis of negotiations,” she said.
A few minutes later, European Union agriculture commissioner Franz Fischler shot down that idea.
The compromises of Seattle are dead, he told the news conference. Discussions in Geneva will centre on the vague mandate authorized in the 1994 agreement, including the need to discuss “non-trade” issues such as environmental protection, rural development, food security and the social impacts of trade.
“It is clear we cannot just start where we are now,” said Fischler. “The compromises that we made here are no longer on the table.”
Vanclief said he hopes talks in Geneva next month can begin where they ended in Seattle: “We really had made progress and it is so important to our farmers.”
Malcolm Bailey, New Zealand trade ambassador, said he still has hopes for January’s start of agriculture negotiations, but the stalemate in Seattle will have an impact.
“It is disappointing because it will delay progress and our farmers need a signal now that change and lower subsidies are on the way.”
