Agri Association write to Bush, express concerns over Doha Round
02 Jun '06
3 min read
America's farmers and ranchers are extremely concerned about the present situation in the Doha round WTO agricultural negotiations.
U.S. agriculture has strongly supported the Doha round as a means of balancing the global playing field and tackling the many inequities in world agricultural markets.
Reductions in, and limitations on, domestic support for U.S. agriculture are only acceptable if the negotiations yield an important net gain for American farmers and ranchers through commitments on market access and other trade-distorting policies by our trading partners.
Reflecting this understanding, our negotiating team emphasized that the very generous U.S. offer on domestic support put forward in October 2005 was fully conditioned on achieving the U.S. proposal to increase market access for farmers and ranchers.
At this point in the negotiations, however, it seems clear that other countries have "pocketed" the U.S. offer on domestic support without being prepared to even come close to the U.S. proposal on increasing market access in both developed and developing countries.
Moreover, these countries are pushing U.S. negotiators to make even greater concessions in domestic support.
Under these circumstances, Mr. President, we believe that it is important to make clear that American agriculture will not support any deeper cuts in domestic support than those already proposed by the administration.
If negotiators are forced to scale back the level of ambition from the U.S. proposal on agricultural market access in order to reach an agreement, the level of ambition in cutting trade-distorting domestic support must be commensurately reduced from the U.S. proposal.
marketing@alchempro.com
