Global trade talks have collapsed as divisions between the US and India over emergency protections for poor farmers proved insurmountable. The so-called Doha Round of World Trade Organisation talks, which had limped into their second week of what had widely been described as "gruelling" negotiations, were derailed late on Tuesday (29 July) due to disagreement between the US and China and India over a "special safeguard mechanism" that would allow developing countries to temporarily protect their farmers from sudden surges in imports by raising tariffs. Trade commissioner Mandelson called the collapse 'heart-breaking' The US blamed the two countries for rejecting a compromise on the mechanism devised by WTO secretary-general Pascal Lamy and further developed by negotiators over the weekend. The special safeguard mechanism has long been a key demand of the G33, a group of developing countries including China, India, Nigeria, Indonesia and Turkey.
Global trade talks have collapsed as divisions between the US and India over emergency protections for poor farmers proved insurmountable.
The so-called Doha Round of World Trade Organisation talks, which had limped into their second week of what had widely been described as "gruelling" negotiations, were derailed late on Tuesday (29 July) due to disagreement between the US and China and India over a "special safeguard mechanism" that would allow developing countries to temporarily protect their farmers from sudden surges in imports by raising tariffs.
Trade commissioner Mandelson called the collapse 'heart-breaking'
The US blamed the two countries for rejecting a compromise on the mechanism devised by WTO secretary-general Pascal Lamy and further developed by negotiators over the weekend.
The special safeguard mechanism has long been a key demand of the G33, a group of developing countries including China, India, Nigeria, Indonesia and Turkey.
Let's party. Champagne anyone ?? keep to the Fen Causeway
... While Beijing has taken some measures to ease the burden on local farmers by reducing taxes, the imbalance still worries leaders such as President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, who have talked frequently about the need to boost development in rural areas. "The government faces very serious pressure from farmers," says Wang [Yong, associate professor and director of Peking University's Center for International Political Economy in Beijing]. <...> Unable to compete internationally on the cotton market, cotton farmers in central India, the second-biggest cotton producer after China, have spent a decade falling deeper into debt. According to government estimates, more than 160,000 farmers have killed themselves because of those debts. <...> Preoccupied with their own rural problems, Chinese and Indian policymakers have little sympathy for the U.S. and other countries that subsidize farmers. The Americans, Europeans, and Japanese are "asking weaker countries to dismantle their own protection measures without doing the same in their own countries," says Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at People's University in Beijing. "It's a double standard." ...
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Unable to compete internationally on the cotton market, cotton farmers in central India, the second-biggest cotton producer after China, have spent a decade falling deeper into debt. According to government estimates, more than 160,000 farmers have killed themselves because of those debts.
Preoccupied with their own rural problems, Chinese and Indian policymakers have little sympathy for the U.S. and other countries that subsidize farmers. The Americans, Europeans, and Japanese are "asking weaker countries to dismantle their own protection measures without doing the same in their own countries," says Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at People's University in Beijing. "It's a double standard." ...
