Back WTO or farm subsidies go on, U.S. tells Africa

This is a hardline policy but I can see the point in it. I think there's a tendency for ministers and diplomats of Third World countries to act like traumatized children at the global bargaining table. They demand too much and it tends to be in exclusion of all other relevant information. Essentially the attitude I see coming out the UN among other multi-national organizations is that the rich should just do as the poor ask without exception, no questions asked. No First World country even under the best conditions is going to respond to insane demands nor to emotional blackmail. It's in the best interests of the poorer countries to embrace the theory of, " you have to give a little to get a little." I certainly realize that many of the world's poorer countries have given above and beyond (and by given I mean it was taken) but there does come a point when must evolve beyond the politics of victimhood or risk being left behind. I want to this succeed. Anyone that has been following my blog should know that I absolutely detest farm subsidies, which is actually just another work-to-welfare program, dressed up for the Mid-West voters. It's a dinosaur clinging to life in a global village that no longer has any use for it and I've been calling for it's demise for years now (even before I started this blog). For the sake of Africa's much needed development and for the future of the global economy that is the true worlds superpower, I hope and I pray the African's don't "Arafat" this to death and subsidies end up clinging to life just a little bit longer.

Here's the story:

The United States has told African nations they must await a global trade deal before Washington will cut farm export subsidies, warning that failure at WTO talks in December could see subsidies extended for years.

A meeting in Senegal's capital Dakar with the 37 countries eligible for trade perks under Washington's African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) has offered U.S. trade chiefs a chance to explain to African counterparts G8 commitments made earlier this month to end farm export subsidies damaging African farmers.

African officials have said they will press for a timetable, but U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns told them not to expect one until other rich countries agreed to dismantle their subsidies too in World Trade Organization (WTO) talks in Hong Kong in December under the so-called Doha round of negotiations.

"If we do not complete the Doha round in December the whole world will move on," Johanns told a news conference in Dakar late on Monday after the three-day AGOA meeting opened.

"If we do not (complete Doha) a new farm bill will be set in place for a number of years and we will have lost the opportunity quite literally into the next decade," he said.

U.S. farm bills usually last 5-7 years, and the next one would probably be passed in 2007, meaning that failure to reach a deal on free trade in Hong Kong would likely see U.S. farm subsidies extended at least to 2012, Johanns said.

"If we don't have a WTO agreement I believe there will be a temptation to pass much the same bill (as the current one)," he said. "Congress is very reluctant to change farm bills after they've been put in place." (More)