World trade talks risk becoming irrelevant - US

Thursday, 3 March 2011 01:26 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) - Nearly a decade of work to forge a new world trade deal risks becoming irrelevant unless fast-growing developing countries like China, Brazil and India make better offers to open their markets, U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration said.

“For these talks to remain relevant, they must address the world as it is and as it will be in the coming decades,” the U.S. Trade Representative’s office said in an annual report to outline the president’s trade agenda.

“The global rules for trade need updating to reflect the rise of the emerging economic powers,” USTR said.

The Doha Round of world trade talks was launched in 2001 with the goal of helping poor countries prosper through trade.

Since the start, it has been vexed by disagreements over how much the United States and the EU should cut farm subsidies and tariffs and how much major developing countries should open their markets in exchange.

Earlier this year, top trade negotiators set a new goal to reach a deal by the end of 2011. But World Trade Organization Director Pascal Lamy recently warned the pace of talks has been too slow to reach that deadline.

The Obama administration on Monday pledged to “intensify

efforts” to reach a deal this year and said accomplishing that would require making agricultural, industrial goods and services markets around the world “much more open.” The United States, which is struggling to generate the economic growth needed to create jobs and bring down a stubbornly high unemployment rate, argued in the report that the world is a much different place than when the talks began.

“The remarkable growth of emerging economies like China,

India, and Brazil has fundamentally changed the landscape - and their growth is projected to continue in the coming years,” USTR said.

“In a negotiation in which the United States is being asked to significantly cut tariffs on all industrial and agricultural goods, we are asking these emerging economies to accept responsibility commensurate with their expanded roles in the global economy,” USTR said.