Brazil Says WTO Talks Need Obama’s Nod in Order to Succeed

A thoughtful Obama Global trade talks need a strong signal from US President-elect Barack Obama to save them from failure, this according to Brazilian authorities. On Thursday, December 11, Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim made this comment after meeting with World Trade Organization Director General Pascal Lamy in Geneva.

"Such a move would be justified because a successful Doha round deal at the WTO would offer one solution to the global financial crisis that originated in the United States," said Celso Amorim.

"I think an encouragement from the incoming administration would be a very positive signal and would be probably what we need in this very last stretch," he added.

Calling on Obama to show leadership and not hide behind formalities as the outgoing administration of George W. Bush handles the Doha talks, Amorim said it was up to Washington to show the maximum flexibility to help resolve the crisis.

Leaders of the G20 rich and emerging nations called last month for an outline Doha deal by the end of this year to help counter the financial crisis by warding off protectionism.

Trade ministers came close in July to a deal in the Doha talks, launched in the Qatar capital in late 2001 to free and promote world trade. However the meeting collapsed over differences between the US and India and China over a proposed safeguard to help farmers in poor countries withstand surges in imports.

Despite progress in technical negotiations since then, the safeguard remains a particular stumbling block. So too do proposals to create duty-free zones in industries like chemicals, and the level of trade-distorting US subsidies for cotton.

Lamy is holding intense consultations with ministers from the US and other major trading powers to see if enough progress can be made on these three issues to call ministers to Geneva to seek a breakthrough.

Amorim said that as far as he could judge, Lamy had not yet made up his mind.

WTO spokesman Keith Rockwell said Lamy would decide today, December 12, whether to call a ministerial meeting next week, after a further round of calls with the major players.

But Amorim, one of the keenest proponents of a deal because of Brazil's huge food exports, said not to call a meeting would be just as much a failure as to hold one that then collapsed.

Mercopress

Tags:

You May Also Like

Brazil: Dengue Situation Critical in Rio. Three Have Died.

During the first two months of 2005 there were over 33,000 cases of dengue ...

More Brazilian Soldiers Make Their Way to Haiti

The last group of Brazilian soldiers slated to join the 5th contingent of the ...

Brazil’s Vale Fires 1,300 and Halts Operations Due to Crisis

Vale, Brazil's giant mining company, announced this Monday, December 8, in an official press ...

Brazil’s Lula Visits and Praises Landless

On Saturday, January 22, Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva paid a visit ...

Brazil Needs Help of the Rich to Stop Amazon’s Destruction

The international conservation organization World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is warning that a ...

Murder of US Nun Deeply Shakes Brazil

Dorothy Stang, 76, a Catholic missionary from the US has been murdered Saturday by ...

Brazilian Pandeiro Does Jazz in New York

Walking through the streets of Brazil, you will inevitably run into a roda de ...

US Pilots Are Illegally Detained in Brazil, Their Lawyer Says

It’s been now more than a month that a Boeing 737 collided with a ...

Brazil Sees Biotecnology as Panacea for Economic and Ecological Ills

The biotechnology development policy, launched on Thursday, February 8, by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio ...

Brazilian Embraer Sells 50 Jets to Texan Taxi Service

The Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer announced today, September 5, the sales of 50 executive ...