You First; OK, Me First
The U.S. trade rep breaks a stalemate with the E.U. by offering to slash subsidies by 2010:
The US will on Monday offer to end farm export subsidies in five years and slash its domestic subsidies by more than half, in an attempt to revive the flagging Doha round of trade talks.
The US proposals will be discussed at a meeting of trade ministers in Zurich, just nine weeks before a crunch ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organisation in Hong Kong…
Mr Portman also agrees to cut those domestic farm subsidies believed to distort world trade by 60 per cent, higher than the 55 per cent reduction the EU was demanding from the US.
Whole Financial Times article here.
I discuss farm giveaways here. Reason's Ron Bailey laments the failure of the last round of talks here.