The operative part of the concluding summary of the MC Chair indicates continued senior official talks during the first quarter of 2010, leading to a "stock-taking" meeting in March, in which it will be assessed whether an agreement can be reached at the end of 2010. I might add some more information and commentary on this later. I want to focus, however, on two key points from USTR Ron Kirk's post-MC press conference that ended not long ago:
First, Kirk said that he and President Obama are "comfortable" that if they reach a deal that achieves their aims of increased market access that creates jobs, they will receive trade promotion authority. At first this sounds good, but when you think about it a little, it translates into "if we get what we want, we will agree to it, maybe". Kirk mentioned a few times that members need to move out of their "comfort zone" to reach a deal. But there is little indication that US can move outside of its own "comfort zone". And anyway, it's unclear to me how his "comfort" that authority will be received some time in the future fits in with the March stock-taking exercise and the mid-term elections in November 2010.
Second, on cotton, there is no change in policy. It can only happen as part of the final agreement. He offered four justifications for this: (1) the formal argument that the single undertaking is a principle of the DDA; not convincing – any party can take unilateral steps towards reform if it wants to, but the US doesn't/can't; (2) the US can't make such a concession without assessing whether it will get what it wants in other areas, ie, services, rules, etc.; taken at face value, this ties the concession that the Cotton-4 are asking for to concessions that other members have to make – the ugly side of multilateralism; (3) the Cotton-4 aren't yet ready to benefit from a removal of cotton subsidies, on the supply side, that will benefit other members before them (with reference to high tariffs on cotton elsewhere). I don't know what the empirical basis is for this claim. The Cotton-4 export their cotton, and it is a major source of export earnings for them. This study, for example, doesn't mention any supply side issues, nor high tariffs elsewhere, as one of the causes of the cotton problem in western Africa; and (4) Kirk said that with all the aid the US is providing these countries (specifically mentioning the Millennium Challenge Account), he can't go to Congress asking for a move like "cotton first". He pressed the point by saying that the Cotton-4 haven't put any of the aid they receive into assisting the cotton farmers. This strikes me as a bit disingenuous. I haven't looked into the specifics, but are these states free to do what they want with the aid they receive? Unlikely. For example, the CIA World Factbook mentions that Burkina Faso has received a MCC threshold account for girl's primary education. And besides, is Kirk actually advocating that the Cotton-4 counter US cotton subsidies with their own cotton subsidies funded by the US? I'll stop here.
