WASHINGTON-(Farm Progress)--World Trade Organization Director-General Pascal Lamy wants to push the Doha round of global free trade talks toward a conclusion. It looks like a meeting of ministers from 35 to 40 member nations will take place in Geneva during the last part of July. The negotiations will focus on opening agriculture, industry and services markets.
"This is the breakthrough that eluded us last summer and the summer before last," says U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab. "We've been willing to walk away from the table if there is not enough there in the way of new market access to offset the discipline we would accept of our trade-distorting subsidies."
Schwab says they are gearing up for this meeting, spending time on Capitol Hill as well as briefing private sector advisors including the many farm groups the USTR office works with.
"We're letting them know what it looks like and seeing if we can't head to Geneva with their best advice and counsel on what kind of deal would work," Schwab says. "And you know we are hoping for the best."
If the ministers can successfully broker trade-offs in farming and manufacturing trade, the basics of the global trade deal could go to the WTO's full membership as early as the end of July.
