U.S. has no plans to budge on food aid programs in Doha

U.S. has no plans to budge on food aid programs in Doha    The U.S. trade representative told the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Wednesday that the United States will not accept calls by some countries in the World Trade Organization for “cash only” programs for food aid.
   “That is not our view,” testified USTR Chief Rob Portman. “Instead, we have worked with the poorer countries and the private voluntary organizations to ensure that the appropriate range of tools is available to address requests for food assistance but subject to rules that guard against displacement of commercial sales.”
   The resistance by some countries to eliminate trade barriers to agricultural commodities still threatens to derail the WTO Doha negotiations. But there has been some breakthrough between WTO members in recent weeks.
   “We’ve agreed to build upon the July 2004 agriculture framework,” Portman said.
   Key provisions of this framework include elimination of agricultural export subsidies by a certain date; tighter disciplines on export state trading enterprises and export credit programs; and substantial reductions in trade-distorting domestic supports.
   “A number of other concepts were identified to address import sensitive products,” Portman said.