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FRANK VARGO 1-202-465-6083

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                 

Doha Risks Being a Seven-Year Broadway Play Called “A Streetcar Named Despair”

 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND, July 22, 2008 – National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) Vice President for International Economic Affairs, Frank Vargo, who is representing U.S. manufacturers’ interests during the World Trade Organization (WTO) Mini-Ministerial in Geneva, today issued the following statement:

The time for games and rigid positions needs to come to an end today.  The WTO is about trade liberalization, and that means it has to reduce barriers to trade.  Anyone who thinks that this round can be concluded without cutting barriers and generating significant new trade flows is living on another planet. 

This round is not a one-way street.  It is a reciprocal trade negotiation to allow the global expansion of trade, which will be of particular benefit to the least developed countries.  That is how trade negotiations contribute to global development – they provide new opportunities for countries to sell their goods and services around the world.

The Non-Agricultural Market Access (NAMA) negotiations are particularly important because they cover 60 percent of world trade.  The range of tariff cutting formulas for NAMA are so week that substantial liberalization and balance is going to require substantial participation in trade-opening sectoral negotiations.

The NAM calls on the assembled ministers to commit to finding ways to cut barriers to trade for all the world’s nations.  If they are unwilling to make this commitment, then the Doha Round risks being a Broadway play with a seven-year run called “A Streetcar Named Despair.”

Now is the time to step forward, roll up the shirtsleeves, and achieve the ambition we all must have for the world economy and global standards of living to grow.  Now is the time to vote for trade liberalization.”