GATT Negotiators Aiming for New Global Trade Treaty by End of Year

Negotiators from 108 countries, brushing aside threats from France that could wreck an accord to open up international commerce, agreed Thursday to aim for a new global trade treaty by the end of the year.

The negotiators gave GATT Director-General Arthur Dunkel, who argued that the ailing world economy urgently needed a trade-driven boost, a green light to relaunch the long-stalled Uruguay Round talks and pledged that they would go for a quick conclusion.

At a meeting of the Round’s steering group, the Trade Negotiations Committee, they approved by consensus a time-frame set by Dunkel that would bring a “political agreement” by Christmas, with details wrapped up in the New Year.

“We have a lot of work to do. We are anxious to get going,” U.S. Deputy Trade Representative Rufus Yerxa, the top American negotiator at the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, told reporters.

The negotiations, which began in the Uruguayan resort of Punta del Este in 1986, represent an ambitious bid to write a more liberal rule book for world trade, covering farm produce, services, textiles and patents for the first time.

Economists say that within two or three years of its completion, an accord could give a long-term boost to the international economy worth up to $200 billion a year.

Yerxa’s comments were echoed by envoys from Europe, Asia and Latin America as they emerged from the session.

Dunkel told a news conference that he believed negotiators were keen to complete the Round because they recognized “that the world economy needs a strong signal that trading nations are cooperating.”

The Round has been deadlocked for two years by a dispute over demands by the United States and other exporters for cuts in the EC’s huge agricultural subsidies.

That dispute was officially settled between the EC and the United States last week, allowing negotiators from the rest of the world to return from the sidelines.

But the French government, under pressure from its militant farmers, has said it does not accept the accord, under which the EC agreed to cut back farm support and export subsidies to clear the way for an overall world trade pact.

Dunkel asked the Trade Negotiations Committee to agree “that substantive negotiations in Geneva be reactivated as of today with a view to achieving a successful political conclusion of the Uruguay Round before the end of this year.”

The GATT director-general did not set an exact date, but diplomats said Dec. 23 was the effective deadline for sealing a new “Final Act.”

After that, negotiations would continue on a bilateral and multilateral basis to work out detailed “tariff schedules.” These would be added to the Final Act for approval by the legislatures of all countries involved.

Dunkel said completion of the Final Act would “call for discipline and self-restraint from all participants.”

But in a rare display of optimism, the former Swiss diplomat sent negotiators away with the message: “I sincerely hope that well before the year-end break, you will be able to congratulate each other on your collective success.”

Dunkel did not set a deadline for completing tariff negotiations, but diplomats said the timing was dictated by the expiration in March of the U.S. Administration’s “fast track” authority to present a package deal to Congress.

“We have until March 1 to notify the Congress that we intend to enter an agreement. We have until June 1 to actually sign an agreement,” Yerxa said.