By Doug Palmer
GENEVA, July 21 (Reuters) - Top trade officials begin a
make-or-break session of world trade talks on Monday, haunted by
failed efforts in 2006 and 2007 and concern over whether the
United States can deliver on a deal.
World Bank President Robert Zoellick has called the meeting
"now or never" for the Doha round, which was launched nearly
seven years ago with goals to cut farm subsidies and tariffs and
to help developing countries prosper through trade.
The talks also cover manufactured goods and services, areas
where rich countries like the United States and the European
Union hope to make gains that will help them sell politically
painful farm trade reforms at home.
"Most of the world's farmers live in developing countries.
They continue to be burdened by gigantic trade-distorting
subsidies and prohibitive market access barriers in developed
countries. Addressing these distortions effectively is the most
important unfinished task in the WTO," developing country
negotiating groups said in a joint statement on Sunday.
Brazil's Foreign Minister Celso Amorim, sounding a hopeful
note, said this week's meeting could produce a new draft text of
a deal in the agriculture and manufactured goods talks.
A paper crafted by World Trade Organization Director General
Pascal Lamy "should appear on Friday," Amorim said, after a
developing country meeting on Sunday.
PAST FAILURES, FUTURE UNCERTAINTY
The Doha round, launched in a moment of global solidarity
after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, has been
notable mainly for its meltdowns since then.
In July 2006, Lamy "suspended" the negotiations for what
turned out to be about six months after major players showed no
sign of converging toward a farm trade deal.
One year later, the talks suffered another setback at a
meeting in Potsdam, Germany, that showed deep divisions remained
between India and Brazil and the United States and the EU over
how to reform agriculture and manufactured goods trade.
This week's talks are overshadowed by uncertainty over
whether the U.S. negotiators can deliver on any deal reached in
the waning months of the Bush administration.
U.S. lawmakers recently approved new farm legislation that
could greatly boost farm subsidies if prices fall.
Also, the White House's authority to submit trade pacts to
Congress for a straight up-or-down vote without any amendments
expired over one year ago.
Developing countries are pushing in the talks for deep cuts
in rich country farm subsidy and tariffs, which they believe
have hurt their farmers for years.
But the United States and the EU say they can only sell a
deal that gives them meaningful new export opportunities and
developing countries have been resisting that.
The main pressure on Brussels at this point in the
negotiations is to limit the number of "sensitive" products it
shields from deep tariffs cuts.
The United States has high tariffs for farm products such as
sugar, dairy products, tobacco and meat, but is being mainly
being asked to dramatically cut its current WTO spending ceiling
for trade-distorting farm subsidies.
The latest WTO proposals call for a cut of about 70 percent
in U.S. trade-distorting subsidies to $13 billion to $16.4
billion. But current U.S. spending is already about half that at
$7 billion thanks to soaring food prices.
So big developing countries like India and Brazil want
either cuts in actual support, or at least a narrowing of the
gap between the actual level and the ceiling.
(Additional reporting by Laura MacInnis; Editing by Jon Boyle)
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Keywords: TRADE WTO/