Global Policy Forum

Seattle Round Might Not Get Out of the Starting Blocks,
EU Aide Warns

By Alan Friedman and Elizabeth Olson

Geneva - With a week to go before it kicks off its major summit meeting, the World Trade Organization failed Tuesday to agree on a draft agenda to submit to the world leaders expected in Seattle on Nov. 30. ''The whole process has been extremely difficult and is now very confused,'' said the European Union trade ambassador, Roderick Abbott. Pascal Lamy, the European Union trade commissioner, said in Brussels Tuesday that the lack of progress in Geneva might make it ''impossible'' to begin the next round of trade talks. The Seattle meeting is supposed to set the framework for those talks. ''I fear the atmosphere might be such that we will not get to the starting blocks,'' Mr. Lamy said. ''We might not leave Seattle with a new round.'' The WTO contends that freer trade will create more jobs and raise living standards around the world. But bickering inside the organization is making it difficult to produce a blueprint for implementing its goals, observers say.

Mr. Lamy also warned the United States not to let the presidential election campaign interfere with efforts to forge a new round of trade talks covering agriculture, electronic commerce, social and safety issues and other areas. ''The American political cycle weighs on these negotiations,'' he said. According to Mr. Lamy, the coming U.S. presidential election might mean that for the Clinton administration, ''the fewer subjects we take the better, because in that way we will have as few problems as possible in the short term.'' In Washington, the U.S. trade representative, Charlene Barshefsky, was far more upbeat. ''I have a high degree of confidence we will come out of Seattle with a new round,'' she said by telephone Tuesday. ''What happened in Geneva is consistent with the pattern of events just before a major trade round.'' ''I think delegations will come together because the risk of failure at Seattle outweighs anything else,'' Ms. Barshefsky added. The talks Tuesday reached an impasse over farm subsidies. Rita Hayes, the U.S. trade ambassador, said, ''We haven't been able to agree on agriculture and that makes it very difficult in other areas.''

Ms. Barshefsky noted that despite requests from France and Japan for ''special treatment'' in the farm sector, ''I don't think the trading system has room for special treatment for anyone.'' Ms. Barshefsky said that beyond the difficult issue of ending export subsidies for farmers, she was certain that negotiators in Seattle would also agree to prolong a moratorium on tariffs linked to electronic commerce. She added that other priorities at Seattle would include ''working to insure the integration of less-developed countries into the trading system'' and planning to study the safety of genetically modified food and other biotech products.

The Seattle meeting, a four-day gathering, is due to start Tuesday. The talks are supposed to form the basis of a new three-year global trade round to promote freer trading across national boundaries. On Tuesday, a key session of trade envoys representing the 135 country members of the WTO was delayed for the third time in two days. A new draft agenda aimed at trimming down the current draft from its 32 rambling pages was not issued either, despite repeated suggestions that it was in the offing. ''We'll have no credibility if we go to Seattle with a text stapled together of papers that have been flying about,'' said a European ambassador who asked not to be identified. A flurry of back-to-back meetings among envoys over the weekend seems to have settled nothing, and the mood in Geneva was somber as the trade body's personnel began packing up to decamp to the U.S. Pacific Northwest. Major differences on two crucial aspects of the talks have prevented trade negotiators from reaching agreement during the past three months of discussions.

The first is agriculture, which is part of the ''built-in agenda,'' meaning it will definitely be on the table. As Seattle drew closer and countries were forced to take a stand, it became apparent that differences on such politically sensitive items as reducing or eliminating export subsidies were not just disagreements but were, in fact, potential deal-breakers. The 15 member nations of the EU locked horns with other nations on the agricultural issues. Backed by such countries as Japan, South Korea and Switzerland, the EU insisted that there be language acknowledging the multiple roles of agriculture, including its value to the environment, to rural life and to ensuring a country's domestic food supply. A group of farm-produce exporting countries, led by Australia, dismisses this language as protectionist and has been equally insistent on ending most subsidies to farmers and having a timetable to do it. ''The differences in agriculture are not wide, but deep,'' said Munir Akram, Pakistan's chief trade diplomat in Geneva. Mr. Lamy, in remarks Monday, warned that the EU countries would not agree to treat agricultural products in the same manner as other manufactured goods either ''now, in Seattle or after Seattle.''

The second issue is that industrialized countries have found themselves at serious odds with emerging economies on how accords reached in the last round, called the Uruguay Round, are to be implemented, particularly in such complex areas as copyright protections. Still to be worked out are how industrial tariffs on goods are to be handled, and the issue of anti-dumping, where countries can impose additional duties on foreign goods thought to be exported at prices lower than the actual cost of production. This is particularly sensitive for Japan, which has clashed with the United States over accusations of dumping steel in the United States. Lurking in the background is the explosive issue of whether fair labor standards should be incorporated into the global trading system. The United States and the EU, pressed by their unions, have espoused formal discussion of the issue. But developing countries are vehemently opposed, declaring that such standards only seek to eliminate use of inexpensive labor and are protectionism in disguise.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Global Policy Forum distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C íŸ 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.