U.S. Needs More on Services from Doha Round – Kirk

(ForexYard – Doug Palmer, Reuters)

The United States cannot agree to a deal in the Doha round of world trade talks until other countries make better offers to open their markets to services trade, the top U.S. trade official said on Tuesday.

“We know that the biggest gains to the global economy are likely to derive from multilateral services liberalization, but the offers on the table right now fail to deliver on that promise,” U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said at the Global Services Summit. “We have said flat-out that there will be no deal without a solid result on services which would result in new market opportunities, but we believe that a positive outcome is still achievable,” Kirk said.

The Doha round has focused “almost obsessively” on agricultural and manufacturing issues for the nearly eight years since it was launched on November 14, 2001, Kirk said. He told the group that a successful agreement must also include negotiations on services and the rules governing the use of anti-dumping and other domestic trade remedy laws. Read more here.