SOMETIMES when you are in the business of reporting on trade issues, the ironies are too great to ignore.
Last week was one of those times.
In Geneva, the World Trade Organization issued what it said was the last chance proposal for an agricultural deal before talks collapse and get sidelined for years.
In Washington, political proposals for a new farm bill work directly against WTO proposals with the support of allegedly pro-free trade farm leaders.
Welcome to the world of trade policy hypocrisy.
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At WTO, agriculture negotiations chair Crawford Falconer begged WTO member countries to move out of their comfort zone and away from their preferred positions if they really want a WTO agreement.
He directed some of his proposals at the American affection for its high domestic subsidies for favoured farm program crops.
Falconer said the United States must offer more subsidy cuts if it is to entice protectionists like the European Union to open markets to more imports.
“The time for cutting to the chase is upon us and no other option is available,” he wrote in a letter to WTO members July 17 as he released his proposals for how a final WTO deal might look.
In Washington, the buzz still is that the Americans want a WTO deal.
The so-called fast track authorization that required Congress to vote on complex trade agreements without the ability to change specific provisions has expired and Congress could nit-pick any proposed WTO deal.
But American trade interests insist that president George Bush would be given the one-time authority to sign a WTO deal if it was seen as being beneficial to U.S. interests. And of course, they say, Americans are free traders who want to cut subsidies and protectionism.
So the irony was thick last week when the House of Representatives issued its proposal for a new farm bill.
The final version will depend on what the Senate proposes and what the two houses of Congress negotiate in conference but the House version likely is the template.
It would increase protectionism and further restrict access for Canadian sugar and sugar beet unrefined juice into the American market. And it would expand the reach of U.S. farm bill subsidies.
That is not surprising since many political observers had predicted Democratic party gains in the 2006 elections would lead to more farm support and protectionism.
What was surprising was the reaction of the American Farm Bureau, the largest farm lobby and the group considered most connected to the free-trade Republicans.
Farm bureau president Bob Stallman said July 20 the House of Representatives got it right by expanding subsidies to new crops.
“By better balancing support programs between all types of crops, the bill further encourages farmers to plant for the market, not the benefit of government programs,” said Stallman.
Which sounds an awful lot like arguing that if everything is subsidized, farmers won’t have to chase subsidies but will grow for the “market” with subsidized crops.
That was not the kind of market-oriented agriculture Falconer was proposing when he warned WTO countries they had to compromise or fail.
With free-trade friends like Washington, does he need protectionist enemies?
