Progressive Talking Points 12/14/05

Another Failed Round for the World

Trade negotiators from around the world are gathering this week in Hong Kong; their efforts are likely to amount to a grand exercise in propping up the untenable global trade status quo. The representatives meeting in Hong Kong lack an innovative vision of agriculture in our modern global economy that would benefit family farmers in the U.S. and across the world. Real change is needed – it is clear that preserving the status quo will not work.

• The current system is unsustainable. Family farmers from Kansas to Kenya cannot get a fair market price for their products. Overproduction, market concentration, and other barriers distort trade and undercut prices. At the same time, oil dependence carries tremendous costs to our economic well-being, national security, agricultural competitiveness, environmental health, and climate.
  
  
• The United States must diversify our energy supply and foster innovation in the agriculture and transportation sectors by investing in renewable energy sources. At the same time, the United States has an opportunity to demonstrate leadership and chart a new course for international trade and global prosperity by breaking the stalemate over agriculture in the Doha round at the WTO.
  
  
• The Bush Administration is not serious about reform and the world knows it. Despite tough talk, the White House position on trade reform wasn't the result of high-level negotiations involving Congress and private sector actors – prerequisites for serious change – it was simply announced one day in a Financial Times op-ed. Such diplomatic efforts have been viewed by the world as less than credible efforts to break the stalemates in the Doha round negotiations.
  
  
• There is a solution that works for American farmers and the developing world. Increased federal government and private sector investment in the conversion of crops and agricultural waste to fuel has the potential to pay farmers twice and boost rural economies, while providing the country with an immediate, domestically sustainable, low carbon fuel alternative to oil. The result would shift our resources away from less competitive trade distorting commodities, reduce or eliminate market barriers to agricultural products, and diversify our energy supply in a manner that will lead to a cleaner, more secure energy future. (Click here to read the Center for American Progress plan.)