The outgoing US trade chief called on Wednesday for members of the World Trade Organisation to step back and review progress on the Doha trade talks but rejected a suspension of the long-running round. Susan Schwab, who will step down as US Trade Representative on January 20 when President George W. Bush leaves office, said now was the time for intense detailed work which had paid off after other setbacks.
Schwab also repeated the longstanding US view that major emerging countries such as China, India and Brazil needed to make a bigger contribution to reaching a trade deal. "There is an opportunity right now to step back, review where we are in the Doha round and to take some time to move it forward," Schwab told a news briefing during a farewell visit to World Trade Organisation (WTO) headquarters.
WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy decided last month against calling ministers to Geneva to seek a breakthrough in the Doha talks because of big differences between the United States and major emerging countries. That followed an ultimately abortive 9-day meeting in July, which Lamy and ministers said did narrow many gaps in the talks, launched in late 2001 in the Qatari capital to open world trade and help developing countries export their way out of poverty.
Schwab said that some phases of the talks had seen dramatic intensifications of activity but the start of 2009 should be used to step back and see what changes were needed. "I don't think suspension is the answer so much as more of the quiet behind-the-scenes kind of work, bottom-up kind of activities," she said.
Schwab recalled the failed meeting of key trading powers in Potsdam in June 2007 had led to progress later that year, by encouraging WTO members to carry out some detailed work on what certain proposals would mean in practice. That had eventually allowed WTO members to narrow the gap on one of the most intractable issues, the protection of politically sensitive farm products from imports, she said, urging a similar approach now.