By Bruce Odessey
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- A U.S. trade official says market access remains the toughest obstacle to achieving a framework for negotiations on agricultural trade in the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Allen Johnson, agriculture negotiator for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, said May 7 that his office remains willing to consider new ideas on market access, including special treatment for a few products that are especially sensitive in certain countries.

He made the comments at a May 7 session with a consumer group in Washington.

An agriculture agreement is viewed as crucial to the success of the WTO negotiating round, called the Doha Development Agenda when it was launched in 2001. In 2002 the United States submitted a bold proposal for eliminating export subsidies, sharply reducing domestic support and opening market access through lower tariffs.

Johnson said he has seen some hopeful signs at least on eliminating export subsidies. WTO negotiators seem to understand, he said, that the United States needs a date certain for elimination and that the European Union (EU) needs reforms on export credits.

On domestic support, he said, the United States remains willing to reduce its domestic supports sharply if other wealthy countries do the same and if all participants open their markets.

Market access is especially difficult for countries where 60-70 percent of the people, possibly hundreds of millions, continue to survive as subsistence farmers, he said. Those countries will need long transition periods to adjust to freer trade, he said.

The draft proposal from the failed September 2003 ministers' meeting in Cancún, Mexico, offered a formula for market access. In some categories tariffs would be reduced by the same proportion; in others the highest tariffs would be reduced the most.

Johnson said that if participants were willing to negotiate, their market access problems could be addressed using the draft proposal.

"Are people willing to open their markets and be ambitious?" he asked.

He said the United States would consider more generous rules for a few special products after negotiators settle on a framework for negotiating tariff cuts, when they get to the point of filling in numbers on the size of the cuts and the time for implementation.

"We're willing to talk about it," Johnson said.

Johnson said ministers would discuss the WTO agriculture negotiations on the margins of the May 13-14 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development meeting in Paris.

Negotiators have indicated that the practical deadline for agreeing on an agricultural framework is July, ahead of the U.S. general election campaign and ahead of changes in EU Commission membership.

"Will we get there?" Johnson said. "I don't know."