New Zealand politician and former World Trade Organization agriculture committee chair Tim Groser says he has known for two years when the four-year-old WTO negotiations will end.
In 2002, after he was appointed New Zealand’s WTO ambassador, Groser wrote on a sheet of paper when he thought a final deal will be signed – Dec. 21, 2006.
“I reckon I’ll be just about on the button,” he told an Ottawa crowd at the end of November.
A final deal, likely hammered out in Geneva at the end of 2006, would leave officials just half a year to work out the final lengthy details on exact cuts required in each subsidy and tariff line.
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The unofficial deadline for that work to be completed and the deal ratified would be mid-2007 when trade negotiating authority expires in the United States, ending the requirement that Congress accept or reject the deal in total and allowing Congress to go through the text in detail, removing parts it does not like.
“It is absolutely crucial that this be done before American fast track authority ends,” Groser told a Grain Growers of Canada seminar. “I do not believe most countries, including Canada, would negotiate with the Americans and make concessions to get a deal if Congress can later cherry pick and change it.”
However, he said that in order to set the stage for a 2006 final deal, significant progress will have to be made this week in Hong Kong when several hundred politicians gather to try to bridge gaps in attempts to win agreement on how and when to reduce trade-distorting policies and production-distorting domestic subsidies. Hundreds of officials and thousands of lobbyists and protesters are on hand to offer their advice.
“We must not fail,” said Groser, elected as a conservative National Party MP to the New Zealand parliament in September.
“What we need is huge political leadership in Hong Kong. Politicians need to make crude decisions, big decisions.
“The issue here is not the details at this point, but the direction.”
