WTO’s Agriculture Committee Finds Trade Agreement Work Difficult

(GENEVA, SWITZERLAND) At a meeting of the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Committee on Agriculture in Special Session, members put forward several new submissions to give a push to the agriculture negotiations and to move into a “solution-finding” phase once negotiations resume in September. A summary of all the negotiation options on domestic support submitted since the 11th Ministerial Conference (MC11) in December 2017 was tabled by the Cairns Group (a group of agriculture exporting countries). In the ensuing debate, many members identified domestic support as the top priority in the negotiations. Benin, on behalf of the Cotton-4, introduced a new proposal on cotton, including a plan to reduce trade-distorting cotton subsidies in incremental steps beginning 2021 and concluding in 2025. Members also examined a new submission by the least-developed countries (LDC) group on the agriculture negotiations as well as new suggestions by Russia on market access as they continued discussions on six key topics, namely: domestic support, market access, export competition, export prohibition/restriction, public stockholding, and cotton. The issue of the special safeguard mechanism (SSM) will be discussed at the next meeting. In conclusion, the chair, Ambassador John Deep Ford from Guyana, provided his preliminary assessment on the state of play on all seven topics, covering the committee’s meetings and the special Working Group process, which wrapped up in June. Looking ahead, he declared the time for reflection is over and “it is now time for actions and movement”.