US to look to Asia-Pacific if Doha talks fail

Canberra, June 29: The United States will look to more regional and bilateral trade deals, including a possible Asia-Pacific trade bloc, if world trade talks fail, U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab has told an Australian newspaper.

Schwab told The Australian paper that a successful Doha round of trade talks was the top priority, but the U.S. was looking to the Asia-Pacific region, and ways to knit together a range of bilateral and regional trade deals, as an alternative.

''I think you will see a real acceleration of bilateral and regional deals including something like a free trade agreement of the Asia-Pacific if the Doha round really disappears from the scene,'' Schwab was reported on Friday as saying.

Her comments, coming a week after talks between the United States, India, Brazil and the European Union in Germany collapsed, raised the prospect of Asia-Pacific nations joining the North American trade pact between the U.S, Canada, Mexico and Chile.

Schwab will visit Australia next week for a meeting of trade ministers from the 21-member Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) group.

The Doha round, launched nearly six years ago with the aim of freeing up world trade to help lift millions of people out of poverty, has stalled over farm and agricultural subsidies and tariffs in Europe and the United States.

Major developing nations Brazil and India have also been reluctant to open their markets to more agricultural and industrial goods without stronger cuts in agricultural support in Europe and the U.S.

Australia, a strong supporter of free trade and more open markets, particularly for agriculture, hopes the meeting of APEC trade ministers in the northern tropical city of Cairns, will set new targets for lowering domestic trade barriers.

Australia also wants the APEC meeting to show some progress towards APEC's 1994 Bogor declaration, which set a target of free trade among APEC's developed economies by 2010 and among developing economies by 2020.

Reuters>