Smith: US lamb stance bad for world trade

By Brian Fallow

Looming United States restrictions on New Zealand and Australian lamb imports would send a negative signal to developing countries at a time when it was trying to build support for a new round of world trade negotiations, Trade Minister Lockwood Smith said yesterday.

"There is a real danger that there is a perception that the US talks the talk but doesn't walk the walk," he said.

"Their reputation is damaged by something like this, especially with developing countries, who will be watching this and saying, 'see what we always told you. You think you have negotiated access to markets like the US and they put in trade restraints like anti-dumping measures, countervailing duties or these kinds of safeguard actions.'

"It hardly helps bring the developing countries into the next round of trade negotiations that will be launched by the US in Seattle this year."

One of the aspirations for the Apec trade ministers' meeting in Auckland this week is to develop strong Apec-wide support for a millennium World Trade Organisation round, including not only agriculture and services, which are automatically on the agenda as left-overs from the previous Uruguay Round, but also industrial goods.

The broader the round, the more room for trade-offs.

A summit meeting of the Group of Eight leading industrial powers late last month called for a "broad-based and ambitious" WTO round.

But such high-powered support does not mean that it is in the bag, Australian Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fischer said.

"The WTO is a consensus-based organisation and any member can in actuality block the launch of the next round negotiations at Seattle.

"Beyond the Apec grouping, some nations have been very reluctant. Until quite recently India was one of those. Indeed the US was not giving a very clear signal until this year."

US deputy trade representative Susan Esserman said: "We have been seeing a fair amount of consensus that first of all the next round must be manageable and digestible and completed within three years, and second that industrial tariffs ought to be a subject of negotiations."

Her colleague, Richard Fisher, said he found it frustrating when the US was depicted as protectionist.

"Our job in the world economy is to grow and consume. We import about $1 trillion worth of goods and this year will probably run a trade deficit of about $340 billion.

"Our weighted average tariffs is a bit over 3 per cent. While we can always do better, these bilateral disagreements have to be seen in that context."