KEY POINTS:
A Democrat congress in the United States will not necessarily mean a more protectionist stance on trade, Prime Minister Helen Clark says.
At the weekend Helen Clark said efforts to revive global trade talks will fail without a three-way "bungy jump" by Europe, the United States and leading developing nations,
The World Trade Organisation's (WTO) Doha Round of free trade talks was suspended in July after failure to agree on farm trade.
Helen Clark has said a co-ordinated effort by the major players will be necessary to restart the talks.
She said today the Democrats had traditionally been more protectionist on trade issues, but that had not been the case with former president Bill Clinton.
"The issue will be whether the president and his Democrat congress can find a bipartisan way through the Doha round," she told Newstalk ZB.
However, she expected the Democrats to be cautious.
"My pick is that the Democrats now will be looking at the 2008 presidential elections and they will be wanting to move progressively, not in any radical way, but progressively on an agenda which will assist a democratic president to win."
Pressure has been building in recent weeks for the major powers to find a way to restart talks.
British Finance Minister Gordon Brown last week called on the EU, the United States and Brazil to pledge larger cuts in farm and industrial subsidies and tariffs.
European Commission Vice President Guenter Verheugen said on Thursday that the United States and the EU were hopeful that the talks could be relaunched early in 2007, although neither side had offered anything new in talks this week.
The Prime Minister said the United States would have to move on domestic subsidies, the EU on export subsidies and leading developing nations on industrial services.
She said the Democrats could feel some pressure to move the trade round forward.
"The Democrats are going to want to assure business and trade interests in the United States that they have an interest in seeing the trade round go ahead," she said today on National Radio.
"So I think it's a question of watch this space at the moment."
Helen Clark, who is in Berlin, said trade would be high on the agenda during her talks with Germany's chancellor Angela Merkel.
Germany was set to take over the European Union presidency next year, which would add additional heft to its positions.
- NZPA
