ABSTRACT

Trade issues framed a major part of the Council’s activities in 2003 and will continue as a Council focal point in the foreseeable future. As I discuss these events and issues I think it is important to recall that the National Cotton Council will evaluate trade agreements as to their capacity to serve the interests of the entire U.S. cotton industry. We work to ensure that both the administration and Congress understand the issues affecting cotton and endeavor to influence the specific form of proposed agreements to reflect the U.S. cotton industry’s concerns.

Members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) continue to seek further reductions in trade distorting practices affecting agriculture. This round of talks, known as the Doha Round, is an attempt to reach further agreements to expand world trade, as calendar 2005 essentially marks the completion of the Uruguay Round commitments that were initiated in 1994. The Bush administration has crafted a Central American Free Trade Agreement, known as CAFTA, and details of the proposal are still unfolding. We should expect full disclosure of the proposed CAFTA agreement in the next several weeks. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) is working on a Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, to link to the entire Western Hemisphere in an economic fashion similar to the U.S.-Mexican-Canadian arrangement known as NAFTA.

U.S. Trade Ambassador Robert Zoellick has announced numerous bilateral trade initiatives with countries across the globe. These free trade agreements (FTAs) have been initiated for a variety of reasons. In some of these negotiations, agriculture and textile issues are quite limited by the very nature of the economy of the participating country. While in other cases a free trade agreement is considerably more complicated. Lastly, I want to briefly review the situation associated with the ongoing WTO dispute stemming from a challenge of U.S. agricultural policies by Brazil.