CRAWFORD Falconer, ambassador to the World Trade Organization in Geneva and chair of the agricultural negotiations, has a reputation for blunt talk in a world of acronyms and nuance.
That was on display in late June when he was asked for an assessment of Canada’s role in WTO negotiations, supporting protectionism for trade-sensitive supply managed sectors and free trade for export-competitive sectors.
“It’s schizophrenic as a lot of members are,” he responded. “But Canada is probably more conflicted than most. Each side thinks their interests are being compromised by the other and they are probably right because that’s the nature of how any government has to broker these things.”
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Like many WTO players, Falconer has a good understanding of the competing pressures Canadian negotiators and politicians face, in part because of Canada’s linguistic politics that has Quebec a strong protectionist and the West strong exporters.
Falconer has heard far more about the regional, cultural, sectoral and linguistic tensions that define this complicated country than any New Zealander should have to endure.
But his wry comments about Canada’s very public balancing act strikes a chord and there are few better examples than the role Canada’s agricultural negotiator has played in developing what WTO types like to call the “architecture” of a deal – the detailed formulae and calculations that create the ground rules for decisions.
So far, the result of Steve Verheul’s architectural work (with many others) has been rejected by Canada as the basis for a deal.
First there was intense and complicated work by a small group of WTO members, including Canada, to devise a tiered formula for tariff cuts.
The group came up with a proposal now on the table that tiers regular tariff cuts according to how high they are. It leaves to negotiators and politicians the chore of deciding whether countries with sensitive products would be able to limit tariff cuts to one-third, one-half or two-thirds of the general negotiated tariff cut.
But since Canada has so far refused to accept any over-quota tariff cut for sensitive products, it has rejected the formula that Verheul helped devise.
Similarly, Canada’s negotiator was deeply involved in agonizingly detailed talks over how to define national consumption levels for various products so that, when countries with sensitive products agree to expand market access to imports through increases in tariff rate quotas that bear lower or no tariffs, there is a commonly accepted formula on how to calculate the base upon which TRQs are expanded.
Proposals are that guaranteed import levels at lower TRQ tariff rates for products protected by over-quota tariffs will increase between four and six percent of domestic consumption levels.
Industrialized countries claiming sensitive product exemptions from general tariff cuts are supposed to submit national consumption data under the formula.
The United States, European Union, Japan, Norway and Switzerland have submitted their data. Canada, rejecting the concept of increasing TRQ access, has so far refused.
One of Canada’s lead negotiators helps design the models that the world is using to craft a deal. Canada rejects them.
Conflicted indeed.
