Free-trade agreement gets year-end deadline

from The Boston Globe

By Associated Press

GENEVA -- The final "window of opportunity" for a global free trade deal might have just slammed shut, according to analysts closely watching the World Trade Organization negotiations.

Having already missed countless deadlines in six years, top trading powers have now set themselves a year-end date for completing the Doha round of talks aimed at adding billions of dollars to the global economy and lifting millions of people worldwide out of poverty.

But for analysts, the most significant result of last week's meeting of the WTO's six most powerful members in New Delhi was how little attention was paid to a much more serious deadline only weeks away -- the expiration of President Bush's authority to send trade deals to Congress for a simple yes-or-note vote without amendments.

"Whatever sense of urgency that might have been perceived by negotiators has now been dispensed with," said Sandra Polaski of the Carnegie Endowment in Washington.

"It seems like they just breezed by that June 30 deadline. There is no evidence that there is any political will to get this done."