US asks G20 for better WTO offer

A farm trade proposal put forward by Brazil, India and other developing countries hinders export opportunities for the United States, a US t...

A farm trade proposal put forward by Brazil, India and other developing countries hinders export opportunities for the United States, a US trade official said on Thursday.

‘‘They’ve come out with a proposal on market access that is very asymmetric. They’re asking a lot of developed countries, then, they are really very, very light on developing countries,’’ the US trade official said on condition of anonymity.

Brazil and India are leaders of the G20 group of developing countries, which is asking for deep cuts in US and European Union farm subsidies as part of a new world trade deal. They have offered what the Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim called a ‘‘middle position’’ between US demands for steep tariff cuts and the more modest EU stance. It would require rich countries to lower import duties by an average of 54 percent, but allow developing countries to do far less.

‘‘Significant market opening by India is just not possible,’’ Indian Commerce Minister Kamal Nath has already said. But the US has offered to lower its spending cap on trade-distorting farm subsidies by 60 percent if the EU and Japan made larger cuts to bring actual spending in all three economies closer together. — Reuters

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