Doha - now more than ever?

Is the sliding global economy another reason to push for a world trade deal? Maybe, but lawmakers still say a bad agreement would be worse than no agreement.

Senators Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Chairman and Ranking Member respectively of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, today led a bipartisan group of 22 senators in urging a balanced agreement in the Doha Round agricultural trade negotiations in Geneva. In a letter to President Bush, the lawmakers said that if substantial improvements are not made to the July framework, any modalities agreement will not benefit U.S. agriculture, the economy and will not have Congressional support.

“We continue to support a successful completion of the Doha Round of World Trade Organization negotiations, begun in 2001, but only if it achieves the principal objectives of the United States and the ambitious goals of the original ministerial declaration for agriculture, which ‘aimed at substantial improvements in market access; reductions of, with a view to phasing out, all forms of export subsidies; and substantial reductions in trade-distorting domestic support,’” wrote the lawmakers. “A sound and balanced agreement should contribute significantly to global economic recovery, growth, and development.”

The full text of the letter can be found here: http://harkin.senate.gov/documents/pdf/DecemberMinisterial.pdf