Anyone for 3D chess?
EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson and US Trade Representative Susan Schwab held a very short press conference immediately following European Commission President José-Manuel Barroso’s visit to Washington DC on Monday. Mandelson said “we’re in the end game” of a multilateral trade negotiation that Schwab described as resembling “three-dimensional chess”.
Fresh from meeting President Bush at the White House, both negotiators played down the looming expiry of the President’s Trade Promotion Authority, or ‘fast track’. According to Schwab:
“Ultimately it’s content over chronology. Nobody is going to reach an agreement on the basis of an artificial deadline if the content isn’t there that is substantively and politically viable… On the other hand I think we all have a sense of urgency and wanting to get this done sooner rather than later, because it’s the right thing to do.
This could well be a tactic to avoid a confrontation between the Administration and the new Democrat-controlled US Congress, currently locked in a fierce battle over the President’s plans for the deployment of more American troops in Iraq. Mandelson specifically referred to meetings with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid giving him “renewed confidence that the Doha deal is doable and within the narrow timeframe that has opened up.” President Bush referred to the “the spread of wealth and opportunity through open and reasonable and fair trade”. Fair trade is a term often used by Democrat critics of ‘free trade’. Mandelson identified agriculture as the source of principle differences between the EU and US, but recognized the need for progress in manufacturing and services as well. US lawmakers are set to begin drafting a new farm bill in the coming months, and will have a keen weather eye on any progress in the Doha negotiations. Separately, Canada is believed to be preparing a WTO case against US corn subsidies.
According to Mandelson, President Bush’s last words to them were “Go to it, Susan. Go to it, Mandelson. Just get it done.” I would suggest that it may take a little more than this from the Oval Office to, as the saying goes, ‘get to Yes’.
Will the President be able to focus his energy on trade while he’s surging in Iraq?
Will Congressional leaders, from the party of Woodrow Wilson and FDR, risk fatally wounding one of the few pillars of multilateralism that has survived the neo-conservative assault?
Will Europe and the United States deliver on a trade deal that lives up to the ambition of giving billions in the Global South the chance of a better life?
Talks between negotiators will continue in the weeks ahead and the next opportunity for a breakthrough is at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos Switzerland on 24-28 January 2007. You can read a transcript of the press conference (PDF format).