|
On July 13, 2007, Brazil filed a complaint against the United States at the World Trade Organisation (WTO), alleging that US payments to farmers have exceeded WTO limits.
The request for consultations marks the first step in the WTO process. If, after the 60-day consultation period, the two sides fail to resolve their dispute amicably, Brazil can ask for the WTO to launch a formal investigation. Brazil is challenging the billions of dollars Washington gives out annually in farm subsidies.
High US and EU farm subsidies was one reason for the stalemate in concluding the Doha round of WTO negotiations. Brazil and India are asking the United States to reduce the estimated $ 22 billion in subsidies that it allots to farmers, and the European Union to trim its farm aid from 55 billion euros ($ 75.8 billion), saying the subsidies keep food prices on world markets artificially low and make it difficult for farmers from developing countries to compete.
In turn, advanced industrial nations want substantial reductions in taxes on exports to countries like India and Brazil, to allow their manufacturers access to these fast-growing markets.
Brazil “expects that the United States will supply information during the consultations regarding all of its domestic support measures,” Ambassador Clodoaldo Hugueney said in a letter to his American counterpart Peter Allgeier.
Hugueney noted that the US had withheld details of its subsidy programmes from the WTO since 2001, but said publicly available information indicates the US exceeded, in six of the last eight years, the US$ 19.1 billion (13.9 billion euros) it is permitted to spend on the most controversial forms of subsidies.
The letter also criticises US export credit guarantees for being in breach of WTO rules. Canada had made a similar complaint earlier this year. The US blocked Ottawa's first request for a formal WTO inquiry into the subsidies, but is prevented under WTO rules from delaying the establishment of an investigative panel a second time.
July 13, 2007
|
