Making progress in multilateral trade negotiations involving more than 150 countries is very difficult. Negotiations require exchanges – offering something for what you want. Given the widely discrepant wealth of developed and developing countries, the poorest countries must, in relative terms, offer a great deal more. Negotiations can advance because the internal interests of the [...]

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The gains from a Doha Round would greatly exceed those of the Uruguay Round. It would be a shame if an inability to find a solution to the SSM on the one hand, and further reduce trade distorting support on the other, derails the Doha Round, Such a failure would reflect a serious lack of [...]

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In my view a failed Ministerial is not a failed Round. I am not aware that any of the negotiators have indicated that the Round has failed, and it is important as talks move forward to remain committed to sound agricultural policy, both in international trade and on a domestic level. Regarding agricultural trade policy, [...]

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Significant progress occurred during the July negotiations in Geneva. However, many differences remained, both within the issues included in the Lamy package and in other areas that were never seriously tackled, such as cotton and geographical indications. As a result, I believe that it is an over- simplification to place sole responsibility on the Special [...]

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By Joe Guinan and Nicola Lightner The Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations at the World Trade Organization is now dead. Like the Monty Python parrot, it has passed on, is no more, has ceased to be, expired and gone to meet its maker, kicked the bucket, shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the [...]

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This weekend, GMF is hosting with its partners the third annual Brussels Forum, a gathering of political, academic, and business leaders to debate the countless items on the transatlantic agenda. Public sessions will be streamed live in  video and audio from Brussels, and transcripts and video for download will be available shortly after each session. [...]

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WASHINGTON — The news from Afghanistan on the counter-narcotics front is bad.   Opium production from Afghanistan’s 408,000 acres of poppy rose almost 50% in 2006, contributing to global heroin production that set a new record high of 606 metric tons in 2006.   The effort to stop the growing and production of illicit drugs, [...]

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European Union Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel will be in Washington DC on Thursday and Friday this week for meetings with all the key farm policy players in the Administration and in Congress. A deal between the EU and the US on cutting farm tariffs and subsidies holds the key to the stalled WTO ‘Doha [...]

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The Financial Times has reported on new figures from the French government statistical service showing that French farmers are”getting steadily worse off compared with their fellow citizens and their European peers”. Such figures are grist to the mill of those calling for a strong defense of EU farm support from the internal pressure of the [...]

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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”.

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