POTENTIAL EFFECTS OF THE WTO FRAMEWORK AGREEMENT ON U.S. AGRICULTURE

The 147 members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) reached an agreement July 31, 2004, on the framework for the final phase of the Doha Development Agenda of global trade talks. After failing to reach such an agreement at the Cancun ministerial meeting in September, 2003, this framework agreement puts the Doha Round back on-track. Negotiations on the details will begin in September 2004. The original deadline to complete talks by January 1, 2005, has been postponed, and the next WTO Ministerial Conference will be held in Hong Kong in December 2005, at which point the talks could near their conclusion. The objective of this report is to analyze the potential impact of the framework agreement on U.S. agriculture. Most of the details of the agreement have not yet been determined, so an in-depth empirical analysis of the Doha Round is not possible. The agreement does, however, provide a number of objectives and a framework for the final agreement which can be analyzed.