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Agricultural lobbyists didn't want to give up federal subsidies to see the WTO negotiations succeed. But that doesn't mean they are happy the talks collapsed on July 29.
Soybean farmer John Hoffman was hoping for a deal that would give the US grain exporters more access to growing markets in China and India. "The major thing that agriculture hoped to gain from productive (negotiations) would be market access, access to countries that have tariffs on our imports," said Hoffman, who is president of the American Soybean Association.
What US farmers got, instead, was no deal, which means no wider access to those markets. It also means that they get to keep billions of dollars of subsidies that the US said it was willing to trim in order to clinch a deal.
The rest of the world lost a deal that was supposed to lift millions of people out of poverty, help Third World development and perhaps give the global economy a boost when it sorely needs one.
Nicholas Hollis, president of the Agribusiness Council trade group in Washington DC, blamed US support for biofuels as a key factor that scuttled the deal.
"The collapse of WTO talks stems principally from an intransigence in the US position regarding ethanol tariffs," Hollis said. "The US needs to demonstrate flexibility and good faith by placing ethanol tariffs on the block for cuts -- if not complete dismantlement." (Source: BusinessWeek)
July 30, 2008
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