Doha talks collapse
Doha trade talks collapse over farm subsidies By Alan Beattie, World Trade Editor Published: July 24 2006 11:57 | Last updated: July 24 2006 11:57
Negotiations in the troubled “Doha round “of world trade talks
collapsed on Monday after talks between the leading six trading
powers in the World Trade Organisation failed in Geneva.
The meeting between ministers from the EU, US, Japan, Brazil,
Australia and India had been intended to break the deadlock that has
held the talks almost at a standstill this year. But they said that
unbridgeable divisions remained between the negotiators, particularly
in the politically-charged area of agricultural trade.
The US has been urging both rich and poor countries to open their
markets to agricultural exports, but many countries including the EU
and India said that the US needed to reform its farm subsidies first.
The failure of the weekend talks means that the round will be
suspended with no near-term prospect of being restarted.
Negotiators needed to achieve a broad outline of the deal this summer
to have enough time to finish them before the White House’s authority
from Congress to negotiate entire trade deals expires.
The talks, launched in November 2001 in the Qatari capital, have
strained from the beginning to reconcile the disparate interests of
WTO members.