Western Producer reporter Sean Pratt attended the Commodity Classic, a gathering of 4,000 American wheat, corn and soybean growers in Florida last week, to see what Canadian farmers might expect from their southern neighbours.
TAMPA, Florida – Behind-the-scenes, country-to-country World Trade Organization discussions seem to be accomplishing what the larger and more public forums could never achieve.
U.S. trade representative Susan Schwab told delegates attending the 2007 Commodity Classic conference that a successful conclusion to the five-year-old Doha round of discussions is within sight, although not days away as has been reported by the media.
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“We’re talking about weeks and months – not years. But we’re not talking about days either,” Schwab told reporters in a news conference following her speech to the 3,974 delegates attending the U.S. corn, soybean and wheat conference.
While a deal is not yet imminent, there appears to have been a breakthrough in negotiations between Europe and the United States, the two biggest players in the WTO talks.
“I would have said, eight months ago, that an agreement might not be possible. (Now) I am cautiously optimistic that we can get to ‘yes’ on the Doha agreement,” Schwab said.
She attributed the progress to a series of low-profile bilateral negotiations that have taken place outside the media spotlight of formal WTO discussions. Negotiators are sending fewer signals to the media and spending more time talking to each other over the telephone, trying to bridge the gaps.
“Frankly, this approach has turned out to be far more interesting and far more helpful than formal ministerial meetings,” she said during her March 2 speech.
During the news conference Schwab also offered encouraging words to Canadian growers regarding the new farm bill, a multibillion-dollar subsidy program for American farmers.
One of the key focuses of the 2007 program is to be more trade friendly and WTO compliant, as evidenced by the draft bill tabled by U.S. president George Bush’s administration.
“The farm bill that (agriculture) secretary (Mike) Johanns has laid out shows the world that the United States is indeed committed to reform,” Schwab said.
She indicated that WTO trade challenges launched by Brazil and Canada have caught the attention of U.S. policymakers, who are now committed to creating a litigation-proof package of farm subsidies.
“When we lost the (Brazilian) cotton case, that raised questions about what other cases might be out there.”
A copycat case that has already arisen is the Canadian corn challenge, which contends that U.S. corn subsidies are causing economic harm to Canadian growers.
Canada has requested WTO consultations with the U.S. on the issue. Schwab said it is only a matter of time before the case heads to the same formal dispute settlement process as the Brazilian corn case.
“We feel confident that our commodity program for corn is fully consistent with the WTO,” she said.
However, she hopes Congress won’t leave future programs vulnerable to such costly and time-consuming legal challenges.
“We hope that lawmakers will embrace a more market-oriented approach to farm policy.”
Ken McCauley, president of the National Corn Growers Association, is skeptical about the timing of the Canadian challenge, implying it is more politically than economically motivated.
“It takes a lot of time and money to defend this. We just don’t see a lot of reason for it, except that we’re creating a new farm bill at the moment.”
Like Schwab, he is confident the supports for the corn industry under the 2002 farm bill will be proven WTO compliant.
McCauley expects the case to rehash a lot of the same arguments that resulted in the Canadian International Trade Tribunal’s decision last April 18 to nix the anti-dumping and countervail duties on U.S. corn.
“We feel pretty confident that our farm bill will prevail,” he said.
