Charlotte Denny
Resumption of global trade talks seems unlikely following the failure of the latest attempt at compromise. Hopes that concessions to the world’s poorest countries will revive the talks were dashed this week when the big four trading powers refused to open areas of their markets.
The World Trade Organisation (WTO) had backed tariff-free access to Western markets for goods from the 48 poorest countries to dispel some of the bad feelings which emerged after the collapse of the Seattle negotiations last November.
But yesterday Whitehall sources said the Quad trading blocs – the United States, the European Union, Canada and Japan – had carved out so many exceptions and provisions that the deal was considered by aid agencies to be almost worthless. The watered-down agreement will be presented to developing countries at a WTO meeting on Monday.
“This was the litmus test of the West’s willingness to share the benefits of trade and they’ve failed it,” said Penny Fowler, trade policy adviser at Oxfam. “I can’t imagine that poor countries are going to get a fair deal … if [the West] behave like this.”
The United Kingdom was one of the promoters of the goodwill gesture, despite opposition from southern European states which wanted exceptions made for agriculture. British trade diplomats in Geneva were said to be despondent that the deal had collapsed.
A lobbying campaign by Trade and Industry Secretary Stephen Byers failed to persuade other EU nations to open all their markets to goods from the poorest countries. The EU insisted the words “essentially all” be inserted in the agreement to allow some exemptions.
But the final straw came in negotiations between the EU, the US and Japan. The US demanded that the deal be subject to international agreements which protect its textile industry, while Japan inserted the words “subject to domestic requirements” to protect its rice industry.