In early January, I wrote a
letter to all the Trade Ministers in the World Trade Organization, urging that the year 2004 should not be a lost year
for the Doha global trade negotiations.
Tonight, 147 economies have
ensured that 2004 will go down as a productive year for the Doha trade negotiations.
President Bush confounded
conventional wisdom by empowering me and my Administration colleagues to make trade success a priority, even
in an election year, because he believes open markets build stronger economies
and help create jobs in the United States and opportunity around the
world.
Today’s decision is a
crucial step for global trade. After the detour in Cancun, we have put these WTO negotiations back on track. We have laid out a
map for the road ahead. Next, we will negotiate the speed limits for how far
and how fast we will lower trade barriers to growth and
development.
We are advancing a strategic
economic opportunity… an opportunity to combine an upturn in global economic growth with a global reduction in
barriers to trade, so that we can deepen, broaden and extend this economic
expansion.
There’s a lot of work yet to
be done.
But today’s framework is a
milestone. Just consider some of the important
decisions we’ve taken this week.
In Agriculture, we’ve agreed
to make historic reforms in global agricultural trade. The agreed framework envisions:
- The complete elimination of
agricultural export subsidies, which the United States and others have been seeking for
decades.
- New disciplines on export
credits and, for the first time, on state trading enterprises.
- The preservation of
disciplined food aid programs for humanitarian and development needs.
- A global commitment to
harmonize global trade-distorting farm subsidy programs, to ensure that countries with higher subsidies are
subject to deeper cuts, a goal long sought by the U.S. to level the playing
field with the European Union and Japan.
- In fact, our new framework
would cut allowed domestic support for agriculture more in the first year than during the entire Uruguay
Round.
- The agreement would also
open markets for farm products, with a commitment – for the first time in agriculture – to the concept
that higher tariffs should face bigger cuts.
- The package also commits all
of us to substantial improvements in market access for all products, an important principle for a diversified
farm producer like the U.S.
- And we worked in an
excellent spirit with our partners in West Africa to produce a good approach to open markets for cotton ambitiously
and expeditiously within the agriculture negotiations. The text also
recognizes the unique development needs of these economies; and the United
States is proud to already assist them with innovative programs to
combine aid with trade.
In manufactured products,
which account for nearly 60% of all global trade, wehave agreed to work toward:
- Expanded market access in
everything from cars to computers to consumer goods.
- We’ll see broad cuts in
tariffs through a formula that would cut higher
tariffs faster, supplemented by the possibility of complete
elimination of tariffs in key sectors. - And we’ll undertake new work
to address non-tariff barriers.
In services:
We’ve agreed to intensify
negotiations to open services markets, which now account for over half of most of our economies, both developed
and developing.
And importantly, we’ve made
clear that services are on par with agriculture and manufacturing as a “core” market access
area.
Finally, an area that hasn’t
gotten as much attention but that I believe will provide tremendous benefits for small businesses, is that we are launching
negotiations on trade facilitation.
- This means we will seek to
cut red tape and reduce the cost of selling into some countries by 5% to 15%. We’ll seek expedited customs
treatment for express deliveries, and to improve Byzantine customs
procedures that cause shipment delays and frustration for small
exporters.
In summary, we’ve come a
very long way since Cancun. We’ve taken an important step toward opening markets and creating new opportunities. We
have much left to do. But if we can build on the good work of this week, we can
deliver a result that will make life better for millions of our citizens, in developed
and developing countries alike.
To close, I want to thank
the extraordinary team that has worked with me day and night – I should say nights, and early mornings, and around the
clock – especially from USTR and USDA.
In particular, I want to
express my deep appreciation for the leadership and skill of the USTR Deputies here with me: Linnet Deily, Peter Allgeier, and
Al Johnson – and the indefatigable head of our WTO team, Dorothy
Dwoskin.
I also want to express my
respect for the hard work of my Brazilian counterpart Celso Amorim, who played a key role in this result.
And I could not close
without thanking Pascal Lamy, the EU Commissioner for Trade, who has been an extraordinary partner. His skill, strong
sense of public purpose, and political courage were fundamental to our
success.
Thanks to them and many,
many others.