Australian farmers blame Clinton for WTO impasse

By Boyd Champness

AUSTRALIAN farmers have blamed a lack of leadership from the United States President, Mr Bill Clinton, for the breakdown of negotiations at the World Trade Organisation conference in Seattle earlier this month.

Australian agricultural leaders said Mr Clintons insistence on discussing labour rights and environmental safeguards in poor countries, and American domestic matters, meant there wasnt enough time to discuss other more relevant issues such as agricultural reform.

Former Trade Minister Tim Fischer identified Mr Clinton as a key stumbling block.

“The sooner President Clinton departs the trade policy arena, if not the administration, the sooner the WTO will have a chance to re-rail for the Millennium Round,” he told The Weekly Times newspaper.

The failed talks – which are expected to cost Australian farmers A$7.5 billion a year (£2.95bn) in foregone export revenues – were supposed to continue the dismantling of markets distorted by subsidies, begun at the 1994 Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture.

Instead, they amounted to nothing, with next years previously mandated talks on agriculture and services the only prospect of progress in the near future.

Talks to “kick-start” the Seattle conference again are due to resume early in 2000.

In addition, the Uruguay Round Agreement contains a clause that compels WTO members to resume farm trade negotiations next month, but with the US presidential elections at the end of next year, real negotiations probably wont happen for another 12 to 18 months.

A comment piece by Tim Colebatch, The Age newspapers economics editor, puts a cynical spin on why President Clinton used labour rights and environmental protection issues to stall the talks.

He writes: “It is not surprising that they (Western powers) have delivered a (trade) system in which most manufactured goods – those in which the big powers are globally competitive – are slightly protected, whereas sectors like agriculture and textiles and clothing – in which low-income countries have the advantage – are heavily protected.

“In the decade to 1998, WTO statistics show, global exports expanded by almost A$4000 billion.

But 91% of that growth went to the half of the world living in Western Europe, East Asia and North America (including Mexico).

The other half of the world, living in South Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, won just 9%.

But Trade Minister, Mr Mark Vaile, said the Australian Government would fight on despite the disappointment at Seattle.

“The Government is not taking the Seattle WTO setback lying down,” he told Federal Parliament last week.

“We will continue to seek out our new export opportunities wherever they may be.”