스크랩 한영 순차 통역 2006-1월 첫번째 Background Material과 용어 (위기의 도하 라운드)

[Captain]

Degenerated Goal of DDA

The sixth WTO ministerial meeting taking place in Hong Kong is an exercise in smoke and mirrors. Since having launched with the aims of poverty reduction and development of poor countries, the Doha Development Agenda has seemed more like a way to intimidate developing countries. The Doha Round promised an end to global poverty and a new prosperity for all by promoting the integration of developing countries in the world trading system. In reality, however, the "Development Round" has done the opposite: the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the U.S.'s counter-cyclical payments (CCPs) devastated the agricultural sectors in less developed countries such as those in Africa and Southeast Asia. The Doha Round's goal changed into new economic opportunities for rich countries alone, with its original goal of the "Development" Round forgotten.

The original goals of Doha Development Round shows that rich countries sincerely started pondering on an economic catastrophe in poor countries. The key objective (paragraph 2) of the Ministerial Declaration adopted in Doha on 14 November 2001 is as follows:

"... The majority of WTO Members are developing countries... we shall continue to make positive efforts designed to ensure that developing countries, and especially the least-developed among them, secure a share in the growth of world trade...."

As indicated in the Ministerial Declaration, the Doha Round regarded developing countries (especially the least-developed countries), not the already advanced nations as the major targeted nations in need of development and assistance. However, EU and the U.S. seemed to interpret the DDA's objective in their own interests. As a result, EU and the U.S. began calling for their own interests in the world trade market more outright and their trade-distorting subsidies curtailed the poor countries' benefits in agricultural sector, an essential field of employment and livelihood for the majority of poor countries. Thus, it is important to see how unfair the agricultural subsides in EU and the U.S. have been and to correct the distorted goal of DDA for all around the world.

EU's Agricultural Subsidy in Question

European Union agricultural subsidies have inflicted great damage on farmers in poor countries mainly through overproduction and export dumping. Despite being considered one of the highest-cost producers across the globe, EU exported a huge amount of sugar and dairy products through dumping -- exporting at prices far below the costs of production. EU agricultural subsidies and their resulting overproduction sparked off export dumping, destroying agri-food businesses in poor countries. Representative of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), EU agricultural subsidies depressed and destabilized markets in poor countries and made the living condition of smallholder farmers even worse. According to the OECD report in Jan. 2002, the EU's share of world wheat markets will increase up to 19.7 percent in 2012 if current agricultural policies remain unchanged. The EU's rise in wheat exports will be sure to bring about the fall of efficient producers' exports in southern Africa, sinking their livelihood in a deepening mire.

Despite the need of the CAP's urgent reform, the Franco-German deal in the 2002 European Summit in Brussels agreed to delay the reform by 2006. It means EU's anti-reformists, led by the French government, have no intention to end export dumping. Because "Fast Track" or "Trade Promotion Authority" (TPA) expires in the United States in 2007, the U.S. negotiators wanted to finish the Doha talks till late 2006. "TPA is the power granted by the U.S. Congress to the Administration to negotiate trade agreements, which Congress can then only approve or reject, but not amend (from development to naked self-interest, Oxfam 2005)." U.S. negotiators say it would be difficult for the U.S. to negotiate and ratify the Doha agreements without TPA. In addition, the U.S. Congress appears to be in a gradually protectionist mood, so EU can substantiate the idea of maintaining the trade-distorting subsidies by deferring the CAP reform until 2006.

CAP's Structural Problem

The major predicament to CAP's success was the mislocated beneficiaries of agricultural subsidies. EU member states insist that CAP funding should be protected from reduction or elimination because it would be the only way to promote rural development and shield vulnerable small farmers in their territory. In practice, however, the main beneficiaries have been agribusinesses and the largest landowners. According to the EC report in 2000, "78 percent of EU farmers receive less than 5,000 euros per year in direct aid. Furthermore, fewer than 2,000 of Europe's 4.5 million farmers rake in almost 1 billion euros in direct aid from the CAP." That's why in many European countries, the rural population has been reduced to one-fifth of its number in the 1950s. Lop-sided allocation of the subsidies has driven small farmers away from their hometown, providing the minority in Europe with the lion's share of incentives. EU's largest farmers and agribusinesses have had a large influence on the direction and content of the CAP from its inception. It is, thus, axiomatic that the agribusiness-led export dumping was the main factor that has distorted the domestic economy in poor countries and ruined their livelihood.

In practice, EU agricultural subsidies have ignored the economic miseries in poor countries. Mozambique and India are the good examples of countries affected by EU export dumping. Mozambique is one of the world's poorest nations and about 80 percent of its population live in rural areas. One of the world's most efficient sugar producers, Mozambique spent less than 286 euros per ton in 2001, and sugar seemed to be looming as a lucrative export crop for the poorest country. However, agricultural subsidies helped EU become the second largest sugar exporter in the world, and caused the world market prices to fall by 17 percent. India has experienced the similar fate when it tried to expand its market into dairy-exporting juggernaut. In March 2002, UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) "cited EU as offering export subsidies at 60 percent of the international price for whole milk powder, and 136 percent for butter." India, home to one-third of the world's poor, became the world's largest dairy producer with the help of many international organizations such the EU, WFP, FAO and the World Bank. However, heavily subsidized European dairy products facilitated unfair competition on the global market and exacerbated the downturn in the living conditions of small farmers in India. Without a fundamental reform on the CAP's structural problem, EU will never be able to reach the original goal of the Doha Development Round.

Counter-Cyclical Payments in the U.S.

Counter-cyclical payments (CCPs) -- subsidies paid by the Administration to American farmers when commodity prices fall below specific targeted prices -- also worsened global poverty and impeded the integration of poor countries in the world trading system. The U.S. argued that the CCPs were based on current prices, but not on current production, so they would never lead to overproduction and its resulting export dumping. Policymakers in the U.S. claimed that the counter-cyclical payments rather resemble the price support system, categorized in the Blue Box -- the one described as "Amber Box with conditions," designed to reduce distortion, so no quantitative limits on it. However, the counter-cyclical payments set target prices unreasonably high in the 2002 Farm Bill, the one which in the end created the CCPs since produce prices had fallen sharply in 1998. For example, the counter-cyclical payments for cotton were set to give when prices fall below $0.72 per pound, while its average prices for the previous 15 years had been $0.59 per pound. For wheat, the CCPs were targeted at $3.86 per bushel, but average wheat prices over the past 15 years had been $3.22 per bushel. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has bought commodities at prices above the market prices, benefiting their farmers with hefty subsidies.

Counter-cyclical payments clearly increase agricultural production in the U.S. even though the U.S. policymakers persisted in CCPs' nature of being based on current prices. One study in The American Journal of Agricultural Economics found that reduction of overall risk in production influenced decisions about planting on subsidized acreage as well as decisions about planting on land that does not enjoy subsidies. It is said that overall risk reduction made farmers project that their benefits would increase if they yield as many crops as possible because the Department of Agriculture would buy goods at higher prices. CCPs, without a doubt, are a trade-distorting agricultural subsidies, so they should be revised or eliminated.

Application of Flexibility and Boycotting Multinationals

The original goal of the Doha Development Round has been impaired by rich countries' indiscriminate demands on concessions from developing countries without guaranteeing how much advanced nations would give in turn. That's the universalism, the festered disease which could be found in any multilateral talks. Even though the Doha Declaration gave developing countries the flexibility to choose and offer which sector they will open up and to what extent, the U.S. and EU-led universalism stopped least-developed countries (LDCs) from exercising even the basic rights stipulated in the international law. Their universalism has sought the application of the universal standard for the tariff reduction in the same level, ignoring the flexibility given to LDCs by Doha agreements. On the other hand, the universalism used double standards to provide a handful of the large landowners with a huge amount of subsidies while rejecting any increase in direct aid for the majority of small farmers in poor countries.

The largest producers and agribusiness conglomerates always lies behind the decision-making as well as policy-making in EU and the U.S. Thus, there is little hope that any negotiator in the Doha talks would find a way to escape from pressures to open up poor countries' domestic agricultural market either diplomatically or through political talks. The politicians and negotiators coming from EU and the U.S. would be lobbied by their domestic agribusiness corporations and landowners. The incestuous partnership between businessmen and politicians, also here in Doha, played a key role in stalling the negotiations over poverty reduction and development in poor countries. No country's government can sever their alliances politically because the U.S. and many EU members are among foreign powers. Thus, it is the solidarity between consumers all around the world that could frustrate the agricultural conglomerates imperialistic penetration into poor countries' fragile markets. Even though vulnerable agricultural markets are forced to open up, consumption of only home-grown products and constant boycott voluntarily conducted among people will hamper the conglomerates' ambition to take the control of all the markets in the world and in the end will correct the misguided Doha Development talks into right direction.

However, there is little possibility for consumers not to buy the cheapest agricultural products once the domestic market opens. Furthermore, despite the developing countries' flexibility being guaranteed in the Agreement on Agriculture, it will, in all likelihood, happen that rich countries continue to ignore the international agreements, extorting and intimidating the poor countries. The Doha talks still have a long way to go in order to reach its original goal.

Doha round of WTO talks seen in danger of failure

The current so-called Doha round of international trade liberalisation talks at the World Trade Organisation are dangerously close to failure, politicians and trade negotiators said.

"Let's face it -- the Doha round is in serious crisis," former Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo told a conference here to mark the WTO's first 10 years of existence.

"We are now heading towards another failure at the Hong Kong ministerial (meeting) and perhaps the best thing some people might be waiting for now is a few cosmetic agreements that might allow ministers in December to say there is no crisis."

WTO members are aiming to kick-start the Doha round of trade liberalisation talks, launched in the Qatari capital in 2001, in order be able to have a deal ready for ministerial talks in Hong Kong in December.

They are under pressure to avoid the Hong Kong meeting turning into a repeat of the ill-fated Cancun gathering in Mexico in 2003 when talks collapsed due to stubborn divergences.

However, experts -- outside of the negotiations -- are increasingly pessimistic about the likelihood of the talks' success.

"We haven't accomplished very darn much in the Doha round and time is beginning to run out on us," said former US trade representative Clayton Yeutter.

"We have a ministerial meeting coming up in December and a lot of work remains to be done before we have anything approaching a successful meeting," added the former top trade negotiator for the United States in the second Reagan administration.

The WTO first director general, Peter Sutherland, warned that growing signs of protectionism in the European Union and the United States risked derailing further trade liberalisation.

"This to me is a moment of vital importance in global history," he said, urging "that we keep this show on the road".

The Doha round of negotiations at the WTO have been riven by disagreements, notably between developed and developing countries over farming subsidies in the EU and US.

There have also been spats between wealthy nations with differing interests, and while reforming the global farming industry is traditionally the toughest problem to crack, talks on industrial goods and services are also making slow progress.

Zedillo, who is now a professor at Yale University, also warned that growing protectionism was holding back the Doha talks and singled out European attempts to shield its agriculture sector from foreign competition.

"The biggest problem has been European agriculture protectionism," he said.

Sutherland accused the surging number of regional trade agreements for diverting efforts away from multilateral trade liberalisation at the expense of the Doha negotiations.

"I think that in the end of the day the regional agreements... this horrendous number of agreements, is often creating confusion and chaos and ultimately developing the most serious aspects of protectionism in the Doha talks," he said.

China's ambassador to the WTO, Zhenyu Sun, also warned that regional trade agreements were an obstacle to the multilateral trading system although they were a reality that had to be accepted.

Urging countries to seek trade deals at the WTO rather than bilaterally, he said: "We strongly believe that multilateralism is the best choice for all members. We have to work together to see that multilateralism functions."

TERMS & EXPRESSIONS on DOHA  (LISTED BY INSTRUCTOR KIM SOO-YEON)

1. reach a substantial agreement

2. quarrels over sensitive areas like agriculture

3. cut barriers to trade

4. trade is one of the bitter and contentious issues

5. goods and services flow seamlessly across borders

6. trade negotiations collapsed in Seattle

7. (protectionism) stage a comeback

8. launch a round of talks

9. under the auspices of the WTO

10. subsequent negotiations

11. the (crucial) ministerial meeting in Hong Kong

12. fast track authority

13. get fast tract renewed

14. resurgence of protectionist sentiment

15. push hard for trade liberalization

16. trade representative/trade commissioner

17. make a bold proposal on agricultural subsidies

18. the main sticking point

19. cut the highest tariffs by ~

20. trade-distorting subsidies

21. muster political muscle

22. kill off an agreement

23. the Common Agricultural Policy

24. cut farm tariffs

25. designate categories

26. exempt 2% of agricultural categories from reform

27. benefits are large

28. boost global wealth

29. agricultural subsidies

30. previous rounds of liberalization

31. skirt round the issue

32. freer trade

33. have a comparative advantage

34. at WTO talks in Cancun

35. bring the proceedings to a halt

36. substantial progress on agriculture

37. poor-world farmers

38. pin the blame on developing countries

39. open markets to goods and services

40. a quid pro quo

41. meet a cold shoulder

42. go down to the wire