Tough round of trade talks ahead

Press, 5 December 1988, Page 10

Tough round of trade talks ahead

NZPA-Reuter Montreal The United States and the European Community (E.C.) came out swinging yesterday on the critical issue of agricultural subsidies, signalling a tough round of bargaining in week-long world trade talks. Officials from both sides said making progress on agriculture was crucial to the negotiations that begin tomorrow (New Zealand time) under the 96-nation General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (G.A.T.T.). They showed no willingness to bow to each other’s demands.

"A lack of compromise or consensus on agriculture is likely to block all

the other negotiations,” the E.C. Trade Commissioner, Willy De Clercq, told a news briefing. He said it was up to the United States to alter its position on providing subsidies to farmers, saying the American plan to eliminate all tradedistorting subsidies was extreme.

“We are still a bit disappointed with the United States,” Mr De Clercq told reporters. But Congressman J. J. Pickle, a Texas Democrat, said it was up to the 12member E.C. to make the first move. “We are not going to move unless they go,” he said. Representatives of the United States, the E.C.,

Canada and Japan met on Saturday ahead of the world trade in an informal “quadrilateral” meeting to discuss key issues such as farm subsidies.

Agriculture is considered one of the most divisive issues in the midterm review of the latest round of multilateral talks that began in Uruguay two years ago and is scheduled to be completed in 1990.

The E.C. and the United States are engaged in a farm subsidy war that has led to overproduction and record low prices in wheat, dairy products and sugar. The North American drought, however, has helped to boost prices and bring down stocks.