FarmPolicy

Doha Perspectives, EU GMO Trade Issue

Doha Perspectives- Brazil

Jonathan Wheatley reported today at the Financial Times Online that, “The failure of the [Doha] talks, [Celso Amorim, Brazil's foreign minister] says, will have dire consequences, including the death of more people from starvation and the destabilising of more governments by runaway inflation.

“Such dangers are more likely to affect poor countries than the rich nations – especially in the US and Europe – whose farm subsidies and import tariffs Mr Amorim and his colleagues from the G20 group of developing nations had hoped the Doha round would dismantle.

“So it is especially frustrating for Mr Amorim that the collapse of the talks was caused by India’s refusal to give ground on measures to protect its non-farm sectors and by unwillingness by China and even Argentina, Brazil’s main partner in the Mercosur customs union, to join Brazil in making similar concessions in the name of a multilateral agreement.”

With respect to the future, the FT article noted that Mr. Amorim sees, “‘a real fragmentation of world trade’, with more bilateral agreements, more dispute settlement procedures at the WTO and, especially, more protectionism.”

The article added that, “One immediate consequence of the collapse is that Brazil will take action against the US on subsidies to cotton producers and on import tariffs on Brazilian ethanol.”

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Posted by Keith Good • August, 4, 2008 • 5:47 am