EU's intransigent refusal to open its market wider to farm products (see article).
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The fear is that the country's agricultural sector will be hurt by reduced tariffs on farm products.
FTAA, the United States would have to slash at its protection of textiles, clothing and farm products.
In farm trade, for instance, poor countries urgently need better access to rich-country markets for their farm products.
It supplements the produce and other farm products his restaurants in Philadelphia and Atlantic City normally receive.
And rich-world protectionism, especially for farm products, has robbed Latin America of some of the benefits of open trade.
This lavish support distorts prices and blocks market access for poor countries that are natural exporters of farm products.
Poor countries need to sell their labour-intensive and farm products to rich ones.
Many of these are more protectionist towards farm products than towards manufactured goods.
"Another important step has been taken to eliminate the distortions of the international market in farm products, " Mr Amorim said.
Also, the farm products commercial sector can make a contribution by using technology to improve varieties and production methods.
The most widespread and powerful objection, though, has to do with the most protected of all U.S. farm products: sugar.
India banned shipments of US farm products, including poultry meat and chicken eggs, in 2007 to prevent the spread of avian flu.
Until now, the economy has grown despite these policies, mainly because of high prices for its farm products, and exports to Brazil.
If poor countries are to accept any version of the Zoellick plan, they will press for much greater access for their farm products.
It is discouraging, in this regard, that the current U.S. administration is complicit in ratcheting up trade barriers in steel, timber, textiles and farm products.
The country's exports, about half of which are farm products, have been hurt both by a strong dollar and by weak prices for agricultural commodities.
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Over five years, the Americans propose to eliminate export subsidies for farm products, and to slash both tariffs on farm goods and trade-distorting subsidies for farmers.
According to analysts at the World Bank, if you excuse more than 2% of farm products from the tariff cuts, you lose over 75% of the benefits.
Mr Mbeki also warned that G8 members must lift trade barriers on farm products from poor countries in order to lift millions out of poverty in the continent.
Tariffs in China on US-made goods are set to fall from an average of 25% to 9% by 2005, with duties on farm products dropping to 14% from 31%.
The farms depend far more on exports than the rest of the economy: around 30% of farm products are sent overseas, compared with 13% for the economy as a whole.
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Given European sensitivities on agriculture, however, there is a big risk that such new initiatives could focus primarily on manufacturing trade and investment, leaving protection for most farm products untouched.
The US would have an opportunity to increase the export of US farm products because the 11.3% percent tariffs on imported products that now exist would be eliminated in Colombia.
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At present the rich world continues not only to obstruct such imports but to distort Africa's own markets by using them as a dumping ground for their own subsidised farm products.
If the world price of minerals surged, say, but the prices of farm products fell, Australia's economy would boom, maybe justifying higher interest rates, while New Zealand's sank, creating a need for lower rates.
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EU's common agricultural policy was originally devised to secure free trade in farm products within Europe by paying the same guaranteed prices to all, and to use these payments to stabilise farmers' volatile incomes.
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Oh and by the way, the United States will not budge on its protection for textiles and on its use of anti-dumping laws, and the European Union wants to carry on keeping out foreign farm products.
And tonight, I also issue a call to the nations of the world to join the United States in a new round of global negotiations to expand exports of services, of manufactures, and most of all, farm products.
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