U.S. and European Union trade officials this week acknowledged they have made no progress in narrowing their substantive differences on the Doha round of World Trade Organization negotiations in their most recent discussions leading up to this week's visit of EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson.
Free trade agreements mooted between the European Union (EU) and several African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries could destroy the economies of poor countries, development agency Oxfam has warned.
The fate of the Doha Development Agenda trade negotiations will depend largely on what happens in respective national capitals at this juncture, suggesting that there is little point in resuming the suspended talks without a material change in the negotiating positions.
Some progress is quietly being made at the technical level on the stalled World Trade Organization Doha Development Agenda trade talks but it still remains unclear whether an agreement can be reached.
The United States raised some sharp concerns over China's lack of compliance with its scheduled commitments as spelled out in its 2001 accession protocol to the World Trade Organization.
The EU has become the first member of the World Trade Organization to use the provisions of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) to enable Members to modify their trade commitments.
Uruguay's President Tabare Vazquez is stepping up efforts to work out a free-trade agreement (FTA) with the US even as various trade-union groups are stepping up their opposition to such a deal and as the president's political popularity slides.
