The Doha Round Has Suffered Setbacks Again. The United States Is Suspected Of "Dragging Its Legs".

On the 29 day, India business and Industry Minister nat (upper) and US trade representative Schwab (next) interviewed reporters in Geneva.

The small Ministerial Conference held by the world trade organization to save the Doha Round negotiations failed to break through the controversial issues of agricultural and non-agricultural products market access in Geneva, Switzerland on the 29 th, and the negotiations broke down.

It is said that the United States and India refused to give in on the special safeguard mechanism of agricultural products, which is a major reason for the failure of the talks.

The United States is even more skeptical that it is deliberately dragging its feet.

    拯救多哈谈判失败

On the 29 day, the 7 major WTO members of the United States, the European Union, Japan, Australia, India, Brazil and China launched small-scale consultations, but they could not agree on the differences between the developing countries' special safeguard mechanisms for agricultural products. The 9 day negotiations ended in failure.

After the talks broke down, the Agence France-Presse quoted a source familiar with the talks as saying that "the United States and India failed to accept the compromise, and the two sides finally got into a stalemate", leading to the breakdown of the negotiations.

According to the special safeguard mechanism of agricultural products, WTO members in developing countries can take special measures such as raising tariffs and other special safeguard measures to protect their agriculture from shock when the imports of agricultural products increase by 40%.

India hopes to relax the lower limit of the mechanism, which is opposed by the United States.

The developed members of WTO want to raise the lower limit of this mechanism.

Some developing members with relatively concentrated varieties of export agricultural products do not want to relax restrictions on special safeguard mechanisms.

Because of the large number of poor farmers in China, the developing members of India are worried that if there is no special safeguard mechanism, the low price agricultural products produced by large scale members will bankrupt the domestic self-sufficient peasants.

Kamal Nat, Minister of Commerce and industry of India, said that India has been supported by hundreds of developing members on this issue.

A representative of India said: "the United States refuses to make concessions on the special safeguard mechanism, but this mechanism is very important to us."

    印度当了替罪羊

The Geneva negotiations are aimed at making crucial efforts to complete the Doha Round negotiations within the year.

The negotiations have made some progress since the beginning of 21, and the parties have basically reached a consensus of 80% to 85%. Relatively speaking, the failure that led to the negotiations is only a "small problem", that is, the differences between the developed members of the United States and India and other developing members in how to implement the "special safeguard mechanism" of agricultural products import.

The dispute over the special safeguard mechanism of agricultural products was upgraded on the 28 day. The United States has put forward some false accusations against some developing members, and is not strong enough to take a step.

The representatives who participated in the negotiations believed that the reason why the United States did not step forward was to drag the negotiations on the special safeguard mechanism of agricultural products, and not let them enter the next sensitive issue, the cotton problem of the United States.

On the issue of cotton, the United States has always refused to completely abolish domestic cotton subsidies. On the other hand, it has asked developing members to cut down import tariffs on cotton.

Zhang Xiangchen, Secretary General of the Chinese delegation, commented that the huge cotton subsidies in the United States had distorted the international cotton trade, while the limited tariffs of developing members were the legal means to protect the livelihood of farmers.

Agence France-Presse quoted an Asian representative as saying: "the United States can not afford cotton, and it simply does not want to talk about it.

And it knows that India will not give in on the special safeguard mechanism of agricultural products, so the United States is not going to let it go on this issue, so if the talks break down, India will be a scapegoat.

    中国感到遗憾

Chen Deming, the head of the Chinese delegation and Minister of Commerce, said in a speech on the last day of the meeting that China and several other participating countries were disappointed because the gap between the two countries at the trigger level of the special safeguard mechanism could not be bridged and the negotiations failed.

He said that the Chinese delegation came this time with hope.

In the 9 consecutive days of negotiations, China has shown flexibility and constructively. It has made great compromises and concessions in the domestic support, sensitive products, special safeguard measures and anti centralized provisions in developed countries. In the introduction of service trade bids, it has made further commitments to open markets in some important fields.

However, when the parties are approaching success, they are deeply regretted by the fact that they have been defeated by some small coefficients.

Chen Deming said that this is a serious failure, especially in the current world economic downturn, severe inflation and financial risk of four volts, failure will have a greater negative impact on the fragile multilateral trading system.

    何时重启谈判

Rami, director general of WTO, admitted at a news conference after the meeting that it was a "heavy blow" to the Doha round which failed for 7 years. But he said that the negotiations over the past week have also made some achievements. He will do his best to push the negotiations back to the right track.

He said 153 members of the WTO now need some time to think about what to do next.

Both sides, both the United States and India, have said that the door for negotiations is still open.

Negotiations should continue. It can be said that this is also the common voice of WTO members.

Rami said that some members even hoped to resume negotiations in a few days to overcome the unexpected problem of special safeguard mechanism.

However, when the negotiations resumed, Lamy refused to give a timetable.

He argued that members of the WTO need to go through a period of reflection before deciding how to resume the negotiation process after the dust settles.

Amorim, Minister of foreign affairs of Brazil, said that the resumption of negotiations may take several years, while EU Trade Commissioner Mandelson is more pessimistic.

He said that in the foreseeable future, WTO members will not be able to reach a preliminary agreement on the two key issues of agricultural and non-agricultural market access.

In view of the fact that the 3 important members of the United States, the European Union and India, which will affect the Doha round process, will face government changes next year, the resulting policy uncertainty is expected to make future negotiations more difficult.

    香蕉协议遭殃

Due to the breakdown of negotiations, the agreement reached between the European Union and the Latin American Banana Exporting Countries during the conference has also been affected and will not be implemented.

Under the agreement, the EU will reduce the import duty of bananas from Latin America to $232 per ton next year, and will gradually reduce to $179 per ton by 2016.

But on the 29 day, the 7 main members of the WTO failed to agree on the outstanding differences between the developing countries' special safeguard mechanisms for agricultural products in a small range of consultations. The 9 day negotiations failed, and the Doha round failed to restart. The banana agreement was also declared invalid.

Barroso, chairman of the European Commission, issued a statement on the evening of 29, expressing disappointment at the failure of the Doha Ministerial Conference.

He said that the European Commission has tried to reach a fair agreement that is beneficial to all parties. He will recommend that the member states of the EU assess the outcome of the negotiations and prepare for the future re engagement with the major trading partners at the right time.