Posted on 10/25/2005 9:32:46 AM PDT by hedgetrimmer
Rich countries must abandon farm subsidies and give more market access to poor states if the Doha trade talks are to succeed, the head of the World Bank said today. Bank chief Paul Wolfowitz made his appeal amid fears that the World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting of ministers in Hong Kong was in jeopardy because of the absence of progress on farm subsidies.
Writing in the Financial Times, Wolfowitz said the need to reduce protection on agriculture was a central element of the Doha talks. He warned that unless serious concessions were made by all sides, the Doha talks would fail "and the people who will suffer the most are the world's poor".
Wolfowitz, formerly a leading Pentagon official, called on the U.S. to step up efforts to cut farm subsidies and urged the European Union to do more on market access for products from poor countries. He added, however, that developing countries also had to open their services and manufacturing markets and lower their own agricultural protection.
Wolfowitz said it was not morally justifiable for rich countries to spend $280 billion (£158 billion) - nearly the total gross domestic product of Africa and four times the total amount of foreign aid - on support for agricultural producers.
The current round of WTO talks stalled in Geneva after wealthy countries failed to reach an agreement on lowering domestic agriculture subsidies and tariffs earlier this month.
Mark Vaile, the Australian trade minister and deputy prime minister, said the E.U. and "particularly France" were responsible for the deadlock because they had refused to accept a plan to cut European farm aid.
"They need to understand they are threatening the future of global trade and cheating millions of the world's poor out of new hope," Vaile said. "It's not enough for them to provide aid and debt relief when the benefits of liberalizing trade are so much greater."
An agreement in Hong Kong is supposed to pave the way for the conclusion of the Doha development round next year, but deadlock on farm subsidies has threatened to scupper the entire process.
The E.U. - generally seen as the villain of the piece by developing countries and the U.S. - is working on a second and final offer this week. The move follows what the U.S. described as its "bold" proposal for trimming the most damaging of its multi-billion dollar agricultural subsidies by up to 60% and phasing them out within a decade.
Development activists say the U.S. scheme is double-edged because it insists on poor countries opening up their manufacturing sectors, a step that could lead to the sectors' collapse in the face of foreign competition.
The U.S. plan has put the E.U. on the spot, and it has struggled to come up with a unified position. France believes the latest round of common agricultural policy reforms - which cut the link between the level of subsidy and the amount farmers produce - went far enough, and is refusing to budge.
The idea of cancelling the Hong Kong meeting has been proposed, but Australia has rejected it. "I don't believe the meeting should be postponed, even if the E.U. does not put forward a better proposal," Vaile said. "I believe the E.U. and France would need to account for their actions before the parliament of world opinion."
Wolfowitz increased pressure on the industrialized world when he said the temporary discomfort of industrialized countries in getting rid of farm subsidies was "nothing compared with the daily discomfort and deprivation faced by the world's poorest people".
Absolutely brilliant response. Most excellent.
You don't burn down the house of the guy who owes you money. China is now a major creditor of the U.S. along with Japan and England.
Yes, but did you know that Hawaii is a state, filled with American citzens, not a foreign country?
>>>"I do not trust food grown overseas. "
Back in Bill Klingon's presidency, there was the case of a large Democratic contributor who was a food broker/supplier. He had purchased strawberries from Guatamala (or somewhere in that vicinity) and clandestinely (illegally) substituted them for U.S. grown strawberries. He sold them into the U.S. school lunch program, which requires domestically-raised food. These strawberries caused a fair number of children to get sick. I can't recall if any died. But it made the national papers.
The contaminant was e. coli -- from sewage runoff I believe. This is precisely the problem at hand. That is why that imported food, whether labeled organic or conventional, needs inspection for e. coli and other contaminants.
Okay, you've strayed into the goofy lane. It's far more likely that a crazed communist economic advisor will collapse our economy by simply not buying our debt.
I still can't find that amber list, but I did find out if we keep paying farmers to set aside their land and not farm it in the name of conservation, it is a 'green box' item, one that is protected by the WTO collecitivists? WTO generated, US taxpayer subsidized subsidy, that is.
Please post the amber list, I know we all would like to see what's on it.
You don't remember the year 1996, when Hong Kong was sold out to China by the UK?
If memory serves, the hand over was in 1997. I don't remember any sale.
Maybe after a good night's sleep you've had time to rethink this. I say challenge is good and hardship is bad. Some people hit themselves with a stick because it feels so good when they stop. I don't. I use my extra energy to make more money. As far as I'm concerned, you can pay all the import taxes and hit yourself with a stick all you want. Knock yourself out (literally).
Leave me and the rest of us out on these tax-hikes and self-imposed hardships.
My opinion is that a subsidy in the name of the environment is still a subsidy (the operative fact being that checks are being cut), whereas banning production (say, to save the snail darter) is not, because no money changes hands.
Sold out.
General Xiong Guangkai should ring a bell with you.
Most of our history had speculative land investment up until the settling of the west. What percent of the population was farmers in the 1830's? Most people grew their own food and even in the cities they raised livestock to add to their diet.
I also recall that there was an expansion of farming during that era. You see Willie the reason for those canals was that we wasn't shipping imported wheat to Chicago but shipping the products of newly created farms in the Midwest
And the real interesting thing is that for most of our history with maybe the exception of 1837 we didn't have any problems with food supply. Yet when an old socialist like FDR creates the farm program we are to believe that it is the only way our nation will survive.
Oh no direct cause for recessions? 1871 recession - cause the Chicago Fire. I can name others started because of wars or threat of wars.
Low price food should be tax-free
Farm Subsidies are not tax free, I guess in your mind it is proper for Donald Trump to subsidized your corn flakes?
Bush imposed tarriffs on steel imports, hardly a free trader.
And what is your problem? you defend farm programs created by old New Deal socialists like Henry Wallace as good yet call other conservatives marxists. Have you ever studied what other countries have farm programs like ours, they are all left leaning nations.
Have you ever researched what happens when governments take an active role in farming? In the end it never ends up for the betterment of the people. From ancient Rome to 1930's Germany the little farmer ended up regreting the government involvement.
What you and Willie seem to ignore is that the industry you are trying to save was dying anyway with subsidies. There is less family farms now than there was ten years ago. Almost no one wants to farm anymore because you can't make any money doing it and that with fifty years of price supports.
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