Mexico : US Presents Plan To Boost Fibre In WTO Meet

In the World Trade Organization meeting in the Mexican resort of Cancun, United States tried to overcome the African anger over its subsidies to cotton farmers with a plan to boost demand for the fiber by scrapping tariffs on cotton, textiles and clothing worldwide.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick said "Our goal here would be to try to help African cotton and textile and clothing producers ... become more competitive,".

West African cotton producers Burkina Faso, Benin, Mali and Chad are pushing for an agreement at this week''s gathering that would ban subsidies to all cotton farmers by 2006.

Most of their fury is directed at the United States, which is expected to spend about $2.7 billion to support its cotton farmers this year, down from a peak of $3.8 billion in 2000.

Washington has proposed deep cuts in cotton and other farm subsidies as part of a new world trade agreement WTO members are trying to finish by the end of 2004. It will not be clear until after this week''s meeting whether the target for reaching a new pact is achievable.

Senators from U.S. cotton-producing states have urged the Bush administration not to give into the African nations'' demand. In a letter to Zoellick, they said estimates of the negative impact of U.S. cotton subsidies on foreign producers were vastly overstated.

"In reality, ending the U.S. cotton program would only harm U.S. producers. It would have no long-lasting positive effect on the four countries seeking assistance," the senators said.

Zoellick said, he and U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman discussed the cotton issue with West African trade ministers for over an hour Monday night.

"What we introduced with our African colleagues was an idea how we might be able to address their concerns by developing a sectoral initiative to address distortions not only in the cotton market, but in the man-made fiber markets and the textile and clothing market," he said.

The United States has proposed eliminating tariffs on all manufactured goods by 2015 and has suggested going to zero in some individual sectors even earlier.