Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hope Praytochange who wrote (748497)	9/1/2006 3:16:15 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 769667

U.S. Delays WTO Probe Into Its Cotton Subsidies By REUTERS September 1, 2006 Filed at 12:49 p.m. ET nytimes.com GENEVA (Reuters) - The United States on Friday delayed a World Trade Organization (WTO) probe into whether it has dismantled cotton subsidies ruled illegal by the Geneva-based trade referee. Brazil accuses Washington of failing to abide by a landmark 2004 verdict in which the WTO decreed part of the multi-billion dollar cotton program violated trade rules and demanded sweeping reform. But WTO rules allow members to block an initial request for a probe, although a trade panel is automatically set up at the second time of asking. Brazil has not said when it will make its second request. ``Brazil considers that with respect to some of the ... recommendations and rulings, the United States has adopted no implementation measures at all, and that the implementation measures it has adopted fall far short of compliance,'' it said in a statement. But Washington, which said it was ``disappointed'' at Brazil's request, told the WTO that changes adopted to cotton programs had brought them into line with trade rules. ``The Brazilian request is unnecessary and without basis,'' the United States said in a statement to the WTO. An eventual investigation, to be ordered by the WTO's Dispute Settlement Body (DSB), will take at least 90 days and could see Brazil winning the right to levy billions of dollars of retaliatory sanctions against U.S. goods. The next meeting of the DSB is set for September 28. Although Brazil has not said there is a link, the decision to press ahead with the request for a probe followed the suspension in late July of the WTO's Doha round of free trade negotiations. The near five-year-old talks broke down over lack of progress in slashing rich nation agricultural tariffs and subsidies, and trade diplomats and experts warned it could lead to more disputes being brought to the WTO. ``It should be little surprise that a new global trade agreement -- the Doha round -- has stalled considering that the United States has failed to abide by rules of the last agreement,'' said Gawain Kripke, a senior policy adviser for aid agency Oxfam. The U.S. Congress has repealed the 'Step 2' cotton program putting an end to export subsidies and import substitution subsidies provided through aid to U.S. cotton millers buying domestic rather than foreign cotton. But Brazil said that this left a series of other programs, ranging from so-called counter-cyclical payments to marketing loans and other assistance which it argues are also covered by the WTO ruling. It has said that it could seek WTO authorization for some $4 billion in additional levies on U.S. goods if Washington is found to be at fault again. According to Oxfam, U.S. subsidies to the country's 25,000 cotton farmers totaled $5 billion in 2005 for a crop that was worth less than $4 billion. ``These subsidies help to depress world cotton prices, hurting developing country cotton farmers including more than 20 million African farmers,'' the agency said in a statement. Copyright 2006 Reuters Ltd.