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Analysts see good chance for new world trade talks

Two years after their disastrous last attempt, members of the World Trade Organisation appear to be on the verge of launching new world trade talks, US trade analysts said on Tuesday.

US officials say the five-day WTO meeting that begins on Thursday in Doha, Qatar, may provide a ray of hope for the faltering world economy, which has slipped closer to recession following the September 11 attacks on the United States.

But combined with the threat of a possible terrorist attack at the high-profile gathering on the Arabian peninsula, is the memory of failure in Seattle when the WTO tried to get negotiations off the ground in December 1999.

However, a number of factors have improved chances of launching trade talks since then, trade experts said.

"Right now, the odds are Doha will succeed and that the agenda will encompass all the priority issues of interest to United States and its trading partners," said Jeffrey Schott, an analyst with the Institute for International Economics.

Schott and others gave credit to WTO General Council Chairman Stuart Harbinson for crafting a draft declaration for Doha that leaves trade ministers in a better position to resolve remaining issues than two years ago.

In Seattle, trade ministers wrangled over reams of text reflecting many conflicting viewpoints that proved impossible to resolve while police battled with protesters in the streets.

CHANGED WORLD

The dramatically changed world situation also increases the chance trade ministers will reach an agreement, said Susan Esserman, who was deputy US trade representative at the time of Seattle meeting and is now with the Washington trade law firm of Steptoe & Johnson.

"It's hard to know until you walk in the negotiation itself and feel the dynamic, but I do think there's an environment today which is more conducive," she said.

Combined with the downturn in the world economy, the September 11 attacks have given countries a "greater sense of common purpose" that could make it easier to overlook national differences to reach an agreement, Esserman said.

But trade ministers will have to make hard decisions in a number of areas, including a debate that pits patent protections for drugs against the demands of developing countries to have access to medicines, she said.

Peter Morici, a senior fellow with the Economic Strategy Institute, said countries likely would agree on an agenda that combines ongoing agriculture and services negotiations with talks on tariff cuts and market openings in other sectors.

WTO members also could agree to a work program to study environmental concerns, rather than the formal negotiations the European Union would like to see, he said.

Many developing countries opposes negotiations to clarify the interaction between trade rules and international environmental agreements because they fear it could lead to new restrictions on their exports.

But WTO case law is already giving developed countries considerable latitude in the trade area to take steps "to protect the global commons," Morici said.

On another key issue, Schott said it was likely the United States would have to agree to negotiations on anti-dumping measures and other laws aimed at protecting domestic producers from unfairly priced or subsidised imports.

But "the price of any significant change in US anti-dumping laws will be quite steep" because of their popularity in Congress, which has the final say over any trade agreement the administration negotiates, Schott said.

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