Background:
Members of the World Trade Organization launched the Doha Development Agenda in Qatar's capitol in December, 2001. Central objectives of the Doha Round include reducing tariffs on agricultural and industrial products, reducing agricultural subsidies, eliminating barriers to trade in services, and spurring development through expanded trade.
The United States has stressed that only an ambitious, balanced, and comprehensive final agreement, with meaningful openings in market access that generates new trade flows, can achieve the development objectives WTO members endorsed and win political support by individual WTO members.
At the G-8 summit, President Bush and other world leaders urged negotiators to keep working beyond a self-imposed July 31 deadline to come up with the outlines of a final agreement.
Schwab joined trade ministers from the European Union, Australia, Japan, India and Brazil in Geneva July 23 and 24 but, in conjunction with WTO Director General Pascal Lamy, determined the talks were at an impasse. The United States cited inadequate offers on agricultural market access as the chief reason.
Schwab maintained that settling for a deal that offered inadequate market access would fail to meet the development goals of the Doha Round.
Schwab noted that the World Bank offered a conservative estimated of a $142- billion income gain for developing countries from the elimination of barriers to trade in goods. That amount exceeds the $80 billion in foreign economic assistance from major industrialized countries and the current proposal for $42 billion in debt relief, combined.
U.S. Trade Representative
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