Cotton on Obama's African agenda
03/07/2009
Cotton subsidies are likely to feature during discussions that President Barack Obama and senior members of his administration will have during forthcoming visits to Africa.
In the build-up to a trip to Ghana that the president will take on July 10, Reuters said West African countries in general had been pushing for deep cuts in US cotton subsidies, which they believe have depressed world cotton prices and blocked the path of cotton from their part of the world to potential export markets.
US trade representative, Ron Kirk, has said that the world's poorest developing nations have "a special place" in his country's trade agenda under the new president. Mr Kirk will travel to Kenya in early August for an annual trade forum with sub-Saharan African countries.
US trade with sub-Saharan African countries remains small, despite duty-free treatment for most of the region's exports to the world's largest economy. Sub-Saharan African countries accounted for just slightly more than 1% of total US exports and about 3% of total US imports in 2008.
Reuters said the US has agreed in principle to deeper and faster cuts in cotton subsidies than for other crops. But its insistence that major developing countries including Brazil, India and China make better offers to open their markets to US farm and manufactured goods has prevented agreement on the Doha Round of trade negotiations, which would offer considerable benefits to developing countries.
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