*EPF325 03/26/2003
U.S. Negotiator Urges EU, Japan to Move on Agricultural Reform
(Success of WTO round depends on agriculture, USTR's Johnson says) (360)

By Bruce Odessey
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- The top U.S. agricultural trade negotiator says that the European Union (EU) and Japan must act soon to make sure World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations succeed.

Ambassador Allen Johnson said that meeting a March 31 deadline for establishing modalities, or specific details and time frames, would be "difficult." He made the remarks from Geneva in a March 26 teleconference with reporters in the United States.

Johnson said a few countries were thwarting "the vast majority" of WTO members who want to comply with the mandate for agriculture in the negotiations, which is called the Doha Development Agenda.

The U.S. proposal, for example, would eliminate export subsidies, sharply reduce trade-distorting domestic support and lower global tariffs by about 75 percent, he said.

"Japan has not shown a willingness yet to engage in meeting these Doha objectives," Johnson said. "The Japanese are just going to have to accept the realization that liberalization is what we agreed to in Doha."

Unhappy with market-access provisions, the Japanese have twice flatly rejected negotiating drafts for agricultural modalities submitted by Stuart Harbinson, chairman of the WTO agricultural negotiations.

Johnson said the Japanese have broad economic interests in making sure the round succeeds "and agriculture is at the core of these negotiations."

He said the EU must reform its Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) subsidies program in the next few months as a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for the Doha negotiations to succeed.

"Europe has very high subsidies we need to see come down," Johnson said.

The March 31 deadline is the most prominent marker for progress in the Doha round ahead of the WTO trade ministers' meeting scheduled for September in Cancun, Mexico.

Johnson declined to describe the agriculture negotiations as "stuck because we're continuing to work through issues." He even said he has not abandoned all hope of meeting the March 31 deadline.

"That's a few short days from now," he said, "and we've got a long ways to go."

(The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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