An opportunity to open doors to global markets for southern U.S. food and agricultural product exporters was halted when trade negotiations deadlocked last week in Geneva.



Negotiators from the United States and over 30 of its trading partners worked intently toward reaching a final agreement on the latest World Trade Organization (WTO) round, which began seven years ago. They made substantial progress on 18 of the 20 issues at hand, but reached an impasse over the amount of flexibility that should be given to developing countries to increase import tariffs under special circumstances. Due to concern about abuse of the term "special circumstances," U.S. negotiators could not agree to the provisions. Concerned that it would allow countries to raise tariffs exceeding limits that were globally approved decades ago, thereby reversing years of trade expansion efforts, they concluded that a stalemate was the only alternative.

The negotiations represented possible gains for American exporters of food and agricultural products. With talks suspended, tariff escalation - whereby an importing country charges higher tariffs on successive stages of production, sometimes reaching as high as 50% - will continue to exclude some U.S. exporters from many foreign markets. "Tariff escalation hits small exporting companies the hardest," said Jerry Hingle, Executive Director of the Southern United States Trade Association, a nonprofit organization promoting export development. "As they innovate their ingredients and packaging to better serve consumer needs, higher import tariffs price them out of these markets." Hingle is an appointee to a federal trade policy advisory committee and has closely followed the negotiations.

"Each time a country lowers import tariffs, we see an immediate and direct increase in interest in that country in food and agricultural products from our region. I can only imagine the boon to our industry if tariffs were reined in globally," he added.

WTO officials have noted the extensive list of items on which the negotiators agreed, but the impasse has delayed completion of the talks for at least another year. "Meanwhile," Hingle noted, "free trade agreements between the U.S. and other countries - such as those pending with Colombia and Korea - may give local exporters a boost in these markets."