As the on-going W.T.O. Doha trade talks sputter, U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman was busy this past week working towards progress in trips to both India and China.
While promoting stronger bi-lateral U.S. relationships, as well as seeking progress in the W.T.O. talks in both countries, Ambassador Portman’s trip to China provided more interesting news coverage.
According to The New York Times, Ambassador Portman indicated that, “The United States particularly hopes China will join in demands from many countries for the European Union to accept deep reductions in its farm subsidies.”
Currently, the EU perceives the primary obstacle in trade talk progress as reluctance from developing countries like “Brazil to make sharp cuts in their tariffs on imported industrial goods,” the Times said.
Although China appears reluctant to play a pivotal role in the talks, the Financial Times noted that the country’s political influence could be strong since China is “a member of the influential Group of 20 developing nations that negotiates over agriculture in the WTO.”
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In what the Los Angeles Times referred to last Friday as “an embarrassing setback for President Bush and the Republican Party,” the House of Representatives was unable to muster the necessary votes to pass their version of the current budget reconciliation package last Thursday.
House GOP leaders expressed confidence the measure could be passed this week.
Recall that the Senate budget measure contains a provision to extend the Milk Income Loss Contract (M.I.L.C.) program, a dairy support program that expired in September, while the current House version does not.
Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, in a stinging editorial, argued that the M.I.L.C. program should be abandoned altogether.
The Journal noted that, the program “distorts the market and conflicts directly with other pre-existing subsidy programs…Letting it expire should have been a no-brainer, not least because dairy farmers still enjoy numerous other forms of government handouts.”
Keith Good writes The FarmPolicy.com News Summary, an Email newsletter containing a summary of news relating to U.S. farm policy which is published most weekdays. To sign up for this FREE publication, go to www.farmpolicy.com.