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WTO talks contentious on all fronts

Anti-WTO protesters from South Korea clash with Hong Kong police near the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center on Wednesday. Hundreds of protesters pumped their fists in the air and shouted
Associated Press
Anti-WTO protesters from South Korea clash with Hong Kong police near the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center on Wednesday. Hundreds of protesters pumped their fists in the air and shouted

HONG KONG — South Korean farmers clashed with police outside a World Trade Organization meeting for a second day Wednesday as the U.S. blamed the European Union for holding up stalled global trade talks.

U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman publicly exhorted fellow delegates at the meeting in Hong Kong to push toward concluding a sweeping free-trade treaty.

“Unless the EU moves on market access, I don’t see anyone else moving,” Portman told reporters on the sidelines of the WTO gathering.

The EU’s refusal to further cut its farm subsidies and import tariffs has been blamed by many delegates for the current deadlock in the WTO’s free trade negotiations. Poor nations say trade barriers protecting agricultural markets in the EU, United States and other wealthy nations block their exports and stunt their economic growth.

Many protesters say globalization favors the rich and robs workers of their jobs.

For a second day, protesters clashed with police on the streets of Hong Kong. South Korean farmers have been among the most militant protesters at the event, claiming that a WTO treaty cutting import barriers would wipe out their rice market and livelihoods.

Security forces fought back dozens of demonstrating farmers with pepper spray, clubs and shields as the protesters punched, kicked and tried to break through a police line a few blocks from the WTO meeting venue.

The farmers, dressed in matching red vests, chanted; “Down, down WTO,”

“The WTO is the axis of evil. We are determined to struggle to put an end to the WTO,” said To Sung-hoon, an activist with a South Korean teachers’ union.

Inside the convention center, Portman told fellow trade delegates from 149 countries that a failure to reach an agreement on cutting trade barriers risks ruining a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to boost the global economy and alleviate poverty.

“The time to stop postponing the toughest work has arrived,” Portman said. “I believe either we move forward or we risk moving backward toward protectionism that will stunt economic growth and harm the developing world the most.”

Portman pressed negotiators not to leave Hong Kong without setting a date for another meeting early next year to nail down a clear outline for a final treaty.

“Although we may not achieve all we had hoped for this week, let us set another deadline to keep the pressure on,” he said.

EU trade chief Peter Mandelson also told delegates that the world cannot afford to wait any longer to wrap up the so-called Doha round of free trade talks, originally meant to conclude by 2004. But he said the WTO’s members will not reach that goal unless negotiations move away from the sensitive topic of farm trade and strive to cut trade barriers on industrial goods and services.

“We will not succeed, in Hong Kong or after, if we continue to focus on only one part of the round,” Mandelson said. “We cannot afford to wait again. When the finishing line is in sight, it is the time to quicken our pace.”

Mandelson has said the EU won’t change its offer of an average 46 percent cut in farm tariffs unless developing nations offer substantive reductions in their trade barriers on manufactured goods and services.