US exports to India, Brazil and other fast-growing emerging markets could remain relatively flat in the absence of a new world trade deal, the White House said on Wednesday in its annual economic report. "A key item on the administration's trade agenda is therefore continued work to open these markets through the Doha Round of WTO (World Trade Organisation) negotiations," the report said in a section looking at the world economy.
The analysis of how the United States could benefit from a new world trade deal follows WTO Director General Pascal Lamy's complaint on Tuesday that efforts to finally finish the nine-year-old talks were proceeding too slowly to meet an end-of-the-year deadline. That has raised concern the negotiations could collapse again and remain stalemated until after the next US presidential election in late 2012.
President Barack Obama is expected to discuss the vexed talks with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff when he visits the country next month. Last week, Brazil's Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota said the United States was making unreasonable demands on developing countries for more market-opening concessions.
The White House report noted India, Brazil and China have all cut import tariffs significantly over the past 20 years but said they remain high compared to the United States. Brazil's average applied tariff is 13.6 percent, India's is 13.0 percent and China's is 9.6 percent. Those compare to 3.5 percent for the United States, 5.6 percent for the European Union and 5.4 percent for Japan, the report said.
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