The collapse
of Doha round of world trade talks will be blamed on US farm subsidy
policy, as India and the EU said reform should happen here first.
Subsidies of $19 billion are expensive for the federal government and consumers,
but the USTR had made many offers to cut subsidies — the problem with
these offers was that they demanded more cuts from Europe, which
provides $60 billion in subsidies to its farmers under the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP). The US government also called for agricultural tariff reductions of 66 percent on average.
For all the complaints about America abandoning trade leadership
with the 2002 Farm Bill, it provided some leverage for negotiation. The
US position was always in support of common, low levels for tariffs and
subsidies. EU complaints were always about the proportion of cuts to
get to that common level. If trade talks had succeeded, the Farm Bill
would have deserved much of the credit. The gamble failed because
Europe can’t compete.
(HT: FEE)
