USTR Froman Says WTO Bali Failure Will Hit Developing Countries Most Acutely
The flexibility offers tabled for the Bali round of World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations will disappear if trade officials fail to strike a compromise in December, said U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman in Geneva Oct. 1. Such a failure would bring disproportionate harm to developing countries, said Froman.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
“The loss of the WTO as a negotiating forum of course, would have the greatest impact on the smallest countries and the poorest economies. Big countries will always have options,” said Froman. “Fair or unfair, that’s a reality. We all want the WTO to be a vibrant negotiating forum — but small countries and poor countries would feel the loss the most.” Froman also said developing countries stand to benefit most significantly, citing estimates that suggest a WTO trade facilitation agreement could cut costs in developing countries by 14 percent. The same estimates, he said, suggest developed countries could see a 10 percent cut in costs.
Froman noted the benefits of the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act that he said bring 97.5 percent of all exports from least-developed African countries to the U.S. market duty free. Negotiating parties have made substantial recent progress towards a multilateral Trade Facilitation agreement, a plurilateral Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) and an expansion of the Information Technology Agreement (ITA), the ambassador said