The New Zealand farmer who travels the world promoting his country’s free trade, low subsidy policy is worried about what he sees happening in Geneva at world trade talks.
More precisely, Alistair Polson is worried about what he does not see happening.
World Trade Organization negotiations remain stalled more than eight years after they started and little progress is evident, despite calls from many political leaders and trade ministers to wrap the talks up this year.
“It is frustrating,” said Polson, New Zealand’s special agricultural trade envoy, during a brief visit to Ottawa last week.
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“There is a real danger the talks actually could slip backwards. This would present a lot of problems for countries like Canada and New Zealand that depend on trade, but it would be a brave person to predict something in 2010.”
He said it is frustrating because proposals on the table in the Doha Round of negotiations “are at the bottom end on the scale of ambition.”
Polson blamed the Americans and the failure of the current Democratic administration to fully engage in the negotiation.
“I guess president (Barack) Obama has been preoccupied with other issues.”
He also acknowledged that this WTO round is the most complicated because it involves development issues, more than 150 countries each with a veto, and a growing collection of country alliances with often conflicting agendas.
However, the free trade promoter said he is worried the continued gridlock in the negotiation will damage the WTO and perhaps convince some that the current round should end in failure and a new negotiation launched with a new mandate.
“I think what we’re seeing is a very serious issue around the credibility of the WTO going forward,” he said.
“And as a New Zealander, I very much do not want to see this recalibrated and a new mandate written.”
Weak as they are, he said proposals now on the table would offer significant new market access for exporters and end export subsidies by 2013.
“Most of the technical issues have been settled and there is broad agreement on most of the points,” Polson said. “It would be a shame to lose these.”
The existing text, written by former trade negotiation chair Crawford Falconer of New Zealand, would also eliminate state trading enterprise export monopolies by 2013, although Canadian defenders of the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly note that Falconer exempted the New Zealand kiwi state exporter from the monopoly-ending proposal.
Polson is not a government employee, but expenses he incurs while travelling as New Zealand’s special agricultural trade envoy are covered by the ministry of foreign affairs and trade.
He said his country continues to prefer multilateral deals such as the WTO because they deal with market access and domestic subsidy levels.
However, New Zealand also has been negotiating bilateral deals with countries including China and South Korea that are “comprehensive” and cover tariffs and access for all products.
