The angry comments, by China’s ambassador to the WTO, indicate how difficult it now is to bridge the gaps in the Doha talks, launched in late 2001, because of differences between the United States and big emerging economies, foremost China.
“Everybody knows what the real reason for the deadlock of the Doha round is and where the main political obstacles come from,” Sun Zhenyu told Reuters on Sunday. “The US is the sole member who insists that we’re still far away from the conclusion of the round. Their new excessive request on an elevated level of ambition is in fact equivalent to a restart of the round and a flagrant deviation from the original negotiation mandates.”
Frustration on both sides has now boiled over into a public war of words, making a deal even harder, a fact recognized by leaders of the G8 countries, who include the US but not China, when at their summit in Canada on Saturday they dropped a commitment to complete Doha this year and simply renewed a pledge to conclude an agreement. Sun was responding to comments by his American counterpart, Michael Punke, the US ambassador to the WTO.
Punke told Reuters in an interview on June 24 that the talks were stuck because of a refusal by China and other big emerging economies such as Brazil and India to open their markets.
The United States says that the big emerging countries have benefited from the global trading system and will also be the sources of much future growth. They therefore have a duty to open their markets to create new business opportunities not just for rich nations but also for other developing countries.
