U.S. lashes Japan over WTO

David Williams, Agence France Presse, Washington

Uncertainty looms over the outcome of World Trade Organization talks to begin next month under tight security in Qatar, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick warned Tuesday.

Japan was taking an intractable position ahead of the Nov.9-13 meeting, further damaging the prospects of a successful launch of new trade liberalization negotiations, he said.

The attempt to launch worldwide negotiations on measures to free up trade would be difficult in Doha, Zoellick told a luncheon meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations think tank.

"I do not know if we will succeed," the U.S. trade chief said.

"The United States must, of course, pursue our national interests as well as promote a global interest. If other countries refuse to cooperate and compromise, we cannot compel a result."

Zoellick attacked the Japanese stance in negotiations leading up to the ministerial meeting, the first since a protest-hit WTO gathering in Seattle failed spectacularly to launch a new round in December 1999.

Zoellick said the Japanese had refused to give any ground in negotiations leading up to the meeting in Doha, where the United States hopes a new round of trade liberalization talks will be launched.

"I have been frankly extremely disappointed by the lack of Japanese -- I would not expect leadership -- but even respectable followership," Zoellick said.

"There is a paralysis in Japan. It is a serious problem. I mean it is a serious problem in terms of the domestic economy. It is a serious problem in terms of East Asia and the world economy. And we are seeing it now."

Agriculture would be critical to the future of the trade negotiations, he said.

"So far while I have been willing to discuss the antidumping and countervailing duty issues in a way that tries to work out something, the Japanese have just said no to everything in the process," Zoellick said.

"That won't work."

If the WTO failed, the United States would pursue trade liberalization through regional and individual country-to-country deals, Zoellick said, noting that it was already in talks for a proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas and for bilateral deals with Chile and Singapore.

"It is our strong preference, however, to launch these global negotiations in order to achieve a common good," Zoellick said.

The United States was focusing on market access, agriculture, industrial goods and services, he said.

It wanted improvements in transparency, government procurement, trade facilitation and the WTO as a whole.

Zoellick said he believed the WTO could play a useful role in protecting the environment.

But "we just have to be careful that it does not become a stalking horse for some things that are anti-agriculture," he said.

Europeans insist the WTO take into account agriculture's multifunctionality -- defense of the countryside, protection of the environment. But U.S. policymakers fear this may be a back door to allowing subsidies of the farm sector.

Zoellick said he was trying to keep the U.S. delegation to Qatar as small as possible for safety.

"We are working closely with our own authorities and people overseas to try to make sure we have got full security but there are undoubtedly risks," he added.

The Sept.11 disaster, in which 19 terrorists hijacked four passenger planes in suicide attacks that toppled the World Trade Center, had set the stage for the WTO meeting, Zoellick said.

"Their strategy is to terrorize and paralyze, not to debate and create," the trade chief said.

"The international market economy -- of which trade and the WTO are vital parts -- offers an antidote to this violent rejectionism," he added.