Thread: U.S. Ready to Talk About Temporary Visas At WTO

U.S. Ready to Talk About Temporary Visas At WTO

GENEVA (Reuters) - The United States, responding to a key demand of developing countries, said on Saturday it would discuss giving more temporary access to foreign professionals, injecting renewed optimism into world trade talks. The U.S. offer -- its second this week in make-or-break talks to secure a breakthrough in long-running trade negotiations -- had ministers and businessmen talking optimistically about improved prospects for a deal.

"When it comes to temporary entry of business professionals we signaled that we are ready to have that conversation in the context of the Doha round," U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab told reporters. "But obviously it has to be in conjunction with our consultations with Congress," she said after a session on services at the World Trade Organisation (WTO). should not be included in trade pacts.

But Indian Commerce Minister Kamal Nath, who earlier in the week was blamed by many ministers for blocking the talks, welcomed the U.S. move and showed understanding for the needs of U.S. negotiators to coordinate with the U.S. Congress.

CONSTRUCTIVE SIGNS
"These are constructive signs," Nath told reporters. "There is good movement by the United States and by the EU."

Services such as banking, shipping and telecoms account for upwards of 75 percent of rich economies and a majority and growing share of many developing country GDPs.
But they still account for less than 20 percent of world trade. So rich nations with their sophisticated financial sectors and developing countries with their youthful educated populations believe the biggest gains from a trade deal could come in services.

So Saturday's meeting in which around 30 WTO players made broad offers on opening up their service sectors will color the negotiations on the core issues of this week's talks -- farming and industrial goods.

"The signals that were sent were magnificent," said Mexico's ambassador to the WTO, Fernando de Mateo y Venturini, who chairs the services talks. "I think in services things are moving fast. This is a very nice indication that things might move as well in the other sectors," he told reporters.

Schwab said she would have liked to have seen more on the table on financial services, a U.S. priority, but said the meeting was a "good step."

And the main U.S. services lobby, which had been complaining for years about the neglect of services in the WTO talks, said Saturday's meeting had injected a "whole new dynamic." "It's a milestone," Bob Vastine, president of the Coalition of Service Industries, told Reuters. "We've never seen as much progress in services."

The upbeat outcome of the services talks followed a sudden turnaround on Friday in the WTO talks, when predictions of their imminent collapse evaporated after seven key players drafted a compromise on the main industry and farming issues dividing rich and poor countries and importers and exporters.

Earlier on Saturday Europe's trade negotiators won backing from most EU countries to press on with the Doha negotiations, but France, Italy and some others expressed concern about how the talks were shaping up.

The Doha negotiations for a global trade deal were launched in 2001 to boost the world economy and help fight poverty. "There are still potential potholes in the road ... But we are closer to a deal than we have been at any point in the last seven years," European Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson told reporters on the sixth day of intensive talks.
Without a breakthrough now, the talks risk being frozen for a further year or two while the United States and the European Commission change administrations and India holds elections.

Tough negotiations on questions such as special treatment for developing country farmers and limits on the ability of poor countries to shield entire industrial sectors from opening lie ahead before a deal can be closed. And even if the core issues in agriculture and industry are resolved, festering disputes about cotton subsidies, the protection of place names linked with products, and bananas still threaten to derail the talks.

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world...trade-wto.html

Great job, US government negotiators. We really do not have enough people already here overstaying their temporary work visas (or visitor visas). It is beginning to sound like Americans should not work (3 million jobs have been lost according to government statics) but we should just be good consumers of all the crap brought into this country without any inspection. Well, doesn't it make sense that without jobs Americans can't be the consumer nation of the world. What next?