Frustration Grows as Global Trade Negotiations Stumble

Senior officials voiced frustration Thursday with the lack of progress in the Doha round of global trade negotiations, as World Trade Organization members appeared likely to miss a crucial deadline for a framework deal.

The latest setback leaves little time for incoming WTO boss Pascal Lamy -- who is holding informal talks with ministers here -- to broker the comprehensive draft deal scheduled to be approved at a Hong Kong summit in December.

Thursday’s U.S. congressional approval for the new Central American Free Trade Agreement could give the global negotiations a belated boost. But ministers and trade diplomats now concede there is no chance of reaching a preliminary agreement by the self-imposed Sunday deadline.

The Doha round is already well behind its original December 2004 deadline for a new global trade treaty, intended to slash tariffs and other trade barriers -- with particular emphasis on boosting access to industrialized markets for poorer countries.

Delivering his final report to delegates, outgoing WTO Director General Supachai Panitchpakdi warned that the future of the round would be “put into jeopardy” unless breakthroughs were achieved soon.

Ambassador-level talks at the WTO’s Geneva headquarters failed to produce a last-ditch blueprint in time for the planned framework deal to be thrashed out this month.

“We have been slow,” Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath told reporters. “I don’t think there are any cards left in anybody’s pockets.”

European Union Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson also said governments would have to show more flexibility if the round was to succeed.

Mandelson emphasized European Union attempts to break what he called “the logjam in agriculture” -- including a pledge last year to abolish export subsidies, provided that others follow suit -- and called on the United States to reduce its payouts to farmers.

But U.S. Deputy Trade Representative Peter Allgeier rejected EU suggestions that the onus was on Washington to break the agriculture stalemate with new concessions.

Allgeier’s boss, U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman, is due today in Geneva, where he is expected to meet with other senior trade officials as well as Lamy.