WASHINGTON -- As she prepared to leave July 17 for a week of Doha Round negotiations in Geneva, U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab said she is "cautiously optimistic" that an agreement can be reached, but that the deal depends on India, Brazil, China and other advanced developing countries being willing to make "contributions" to the process.
At a news conference, Schwab said, "We are going with the intention to do a deal, to seek a successful breakthrough that has eluded us, but we know we cannot do it alone."
The trade negotiators will try to reach agreement to cut agricultural and manufacturing tariffs and make it easier to export food and goods, but a dozen U.S. commodity groups and the National Farmers Union have written Bush to say they are worried Schwab will give up more than she will get. U.S. cotton, sugar and rice groups are sending representatives to Geneva the week of July 21.
Schwab told reporters that U.S. negotiators like some elements in the agriculture text under discussion and dislike other items. She did not say what she likes and dislikes. She said the United States is committed to "do something more and do something faster" on cotton than on the rest of agriculture, but cannot reveal what special action it would take on cotton formulas before the rest of agriculture have been determined. African cotton-producing countries have put pressure on the United States to reduce its cotton subsidies. Brazil also has won a case against the U.S. cotton program in the World Trade Organization.
The negotiating session, called by World Trade Organization Director General Pascal Lamy, will bring together the trade ministers from 30 countries to try to reach agreement on the "modalities" or parameters of changes to tariffs and other trade barriers that all 152 WTO members would have to discuss at a later date.
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'A sense of momentum'
Schwab noted that she had briefed the Senate Finance and House Agriculture committees July 16 and would brief the House Ways and Means and Senate Agriculture committees before she leaves. Schwab said Republican and Democratic members "are beginning to share a sense of momentum" that a deal is in the works for the Doha Round, which was launched in 2001 but has long been stalled. A Senate Democratic aide said Schwab's message to members and staff in the closed-door meetings was that she realized she has told them several times that a deal was about to happen, but that this time she really thinks it will.
Schwab said that negotiators from other countries should not look at the Bush administration's inability to get Congress to approve the U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement as a signal that Congress is unlikely to approve a Doha round agreement. Schwab said the reason Congress has not approved the U.S.-Colombia agreement "is not because of trade policy" and added that it is "a shame it has not moved on the Hill."
She also said, "The Doha Development Agenda is another matter entirely" because members of Congress realize it is so important to developing countries and because worldwide trade is so important to the U.S. economy. To critics who say that it would be better to hold off the Doha negotiations until after the presidential election, Schwab said, "The rest of the world isn't going to sit around waiting for the U.S. to have an election." Sitting on the sidelines, while others negotiated, Schwab said, would put the United States at a disadvantage.
Schwab stressed that the most important goal of the Doha Round is to generate development in low-income countries and alleviate poverty. She said U.S. "export and import aspirations" are second and that a successful outcome also could reduce protectionist pressure in the United States and other countries.
The goal of the upcoming session is to reach agreement on agriculture and manufacturing, but Schwab said she and other negotiators will not be able to decide what they do in those areas until the middle of the week, when they will break to see "the full picture" by spending a day "signaling" what offers countries plan to make to liberalize trade in services at another conference later this summer.
