Other Priority Trade Policy Issues
GSM-102 Program
- Details
- Category: Other Priorities
- Published on Friday, 03 February 2012 15:28
The Export Credit Guarantee Program (GSM-102) provides credit guarantees to encourage financing of commercial exports of U.S. agricultural products, while providing competitive credit to buyers. The program is authorized to provide allocations of up to $5.5 billion annually. Coarse grains and co-products exports have heavily utilized this program. In FY 2011 registered guarantees totaled $4.1 billion. Of that total, coarse grains and co-products constituted more than $1.3 billion or one-third of the total. Corn (yellow and white) exports received over $1 billion of credit guarantees. Countries and regions utilizing guarantees for coarse grains and co-products include: Africa and Middle East; Caribbean; Central America; South America; Southeast Asia; South Korea; Mexico; and Turkey.
Doha Development Round Negotiations
- Details
- Category: Other Priorities
- Published on Friday, 03 February 2012 15:28
The December 2011 WTO Ministerial Conference failed to achieve a breakthrough in the long-stalled Doha negotiations. No progress was made on proposals to work toward “early harvest” agreements in certain areas, such as trade facilitation, or on proposals for plurilateral deals among like-minded countries. These approaches would require abandoning two long-established negotiating principles: the “single undertaking,” in which no individual negotiating topic is agreed to until all elements of the package are agreed to; and the principle that agreements must be reached by consensus. Also, no agreement was reached on a “deliverables package” for the least developed countries.
Russia Accession to the WTO
- Details
- Category: Other Priorities
- Published on Friday, 03 February 2012 15:28
The WTO coordinated efforts to secure an agreement on Russia’s WTO accession resulted in approval at the December WTO 2011 ministerial meeting. The Russian congress, the Duma will likely ratify the agreement in June, 2012. The U.S. Congress must also pass legislation to remove Russia from the Jackson-Vanik law which requires an annual review of Russian emigration and human rights policies before extending “most favored nation” status to Russia PNTR. If all of the issues are resolved, Russia’s membership would become official July 1.
