European Union and U.S. leaders though have agreed to seek ways of resolving the deadlock over global trade talks, but no major breakthrough is in sight yet. It is like business as usual when both the parties say that they are agreed to seek news ways without mentioning what differences have been narrowed. The high level talks ended on the statement that EU and the U.S. have made progress to break impasse on Doha round talks.
Brussels has alleged that U.S. inflexibility is primarily responsible for the failure of breaking deadlock between the two sides on Doha round. The U.S. on the other hand, in its counter allegation says that Europe has failed to open up its market. In the meanwhile the E.U. escalated pressures on the U.S. to resolve differences as President Bush’s exclusive fast-track authority to negotiate US trade deal will expire this year.
Major Farm Groups of the U.S. such as American Farm Bureau Federation support the existing reform plan of the U.S. government that would cut the government’s handouts by 53 percent. However, they are not agreed for further cuts until Europe and the major developing countries like India and Brazil lower their tariffs. The U.S. blames the E.U. for the deadlock for refusing to make deeper cuts in tariffs on agricultural imports.
It is aptly clear that at diplomatic levels when no consensus is being reached in talks a lot of adjectives and allegories start pouring in significantly making things vague and left on media speculations. In the present high level talks on Doha round, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso described hi talks with the president Bush as ‘Defining moment’ and described talks as ‘very good exchange’. On the other hand, U.S. trade representative, Susan Schwab said that ‘we are clearly making progress’ while her counterpart Peter Mandelson seeing the talks in term of some impetus have been gained.
However, the present talks in the U.S. have at least made a point that the gap between the U.S. and the E.U. is such that hopes for a successful outcome can be dismissed out rightly.
