GENEVA - The United States said on Tuesday that the long-running Doha round of global trade talks was at risk after a group of developing countries insisted they get favorable treatment in the negotiations.
Washington has been expressing frustration for several weeks at the progress of the talks, launched six years ago to boost the world economy by opening up trade.
"We are very concerned about this proposal that came out today," Sean Spicer, a spokesman for U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab, said in a statement. "In fact, this proposal could signal the end of the Doha Round."
The U.S. statement amounts to a challenge to India, Brazil and South Africa to affirm their support for the talks when they hold a summit in Pretoria on Oct. 17.
For a deal to be politically viable, every WTO member needs to be able to point to some gains to compensate for any sacrifices it makes. Thus, Washington wants access to developing country markets for manufactured goods and services in return for cutting its trade-distorting farm support.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Tuesday the United States had repeatedly shown its willingness to cut farm subsidies as part of a world trade deal but it could not "unilaterally disarm."
"This is a matter of will.... The major developing countries need to come together to find a way to offer a realistic prospect of market access" to U.S. farmers and other exporters, Rice told reporters after a speech on U.S. trade relations with Latin America.
The much-stalled talks, launched nearly six years ago, picked up momentum last month on the basis of papers on agriculture and industry issued by WTO mediators in July.
Trade diplomats say that these papers could be revised at the end of this month or in early November, paving the way for a broader deal including services and other areas of trade.
Both the United States and the European Union want to continue working on the basis of those texts.
NO ALTERNATIVE NEEDED
"Alternative papers are not needed and we await others at the table to undertake the necessary negotiations," Peter Power, a spokesman for EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson, told Reuters.
While most of the WTO's 151 members say that the agriculture text has the potential for a deal, many developing countries are unhappy with the industry paper.
Some reject it outright, while others such as India say it needs serious revision.
For instance the industry text would cap developed country tariffs at 8-9 percent, below the 19-23 percent for developing countries. But because developing countries have higher tariffs to start with, they have to make steeper cuts.
They say this runs counter to the principle of "less than full reciprocity" that is part of the original negotiating mandate for the Doha round.
"Less than full reciprocity" means that developing countries have to make fewer concessions than rich ones in the Doha round, which aims specifically to help developing countries.
Earlier South Africa, on behalf of a group of major developing countries known as the NAMA-11 that includes Brazil, India and Argentina, made a statement to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) general council underlining their position on the trade talks, WTO spokesman Keith Rockwell told a briefing.
The head of South Africa's WTO delegation, Faizel Ismail, told the council agriculture was central to the talks and the deal on industry had to reflect "less than full reciprocity." He also discussed other special treatment for developing countries.
Ismail was backed by several other developing countries and won support from EU ambassador Eckart Guth for a degree of "less than full reciprocity."
But U.S. ambassador Peter Allgeier expressed disappointment at the South African statement. He said Washington accepts that there must be special treatment for developing countries, but WTO members had to take both the texts as the basis for talks.
Washington has agreed to cap its farm subsidies in line with the agriculture text, provided other members accept the ranges for tariffs and subsidies in both papers.
That has prompted a letter from U.S. farm lobbyists to President Bush warning him against accepting a deal that would slash subsidies without unlocking new markets. (Additional reporting by Doug Palmer in Washington)
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