China: U.S. Should Contribute More in Trade Negotiations

China has urged the United States to take a more active role in the Doha Round trade negotiations.
China's First Ambassador to the World Trade Organization Sun Zhenyu also expressed serious concerns about the continuous depreciation of the U.S. dollar.

The ambassador examined the US trade policy during an interview with CRI in Geneva after a WTO session reviewing the trade policies of the United States.

Our reporter Liao Jibo has the details.

Reporter:
According to a report issued by WTO after the meeting, most of the WTO members are deeply concerned about the current U.S. trade policies.

Sun Zhenyu said during the review, many countries have criticized U.S. monetary policy.

"The depreciation of U.S. dollars really caused difficulties for many developing countries, particularly since U.S. dollar is such an important currency in the world, and many countries have U.S. dollar as their foreign currency reserve. So this has caused inflations in many other countries, and also caused the price hike of the oil and food prices. "

During the WTO session when the US trade policies were reviewed, more than 800 questions were raised by other members. Many are related to the U.S. trade protectionism.

On Wednesday, The European Union said that they've drawn attention to worrying signs of a re-emergence of protectionism in a number of policy areas in the United States, citing anti-terrorism-inspired import controls and a recent farm bill drafted by the U.S. Congress.

Sun Zhenyu pointed out that such kind of protectionism is also obvious in trade activities between China and the Untied Sates.
"The U.S uses a lot of trade remedies. There is abuse. There is a tendency to abuse trade remedies in anti-dumping or counter vailing duties. Those measures are used at the same time. All these practices really affected the bilateral trade."

Sun said the U.S. government's unwillingness to cut farm subsidies is the main cause for the long impasses of the Doha Round negotiations. He urged the States to take a more flexible attitude in agriculture negotiations.

"In order to complete the round of the Doha negotiations, the U.S. should accept a higher cut on their domestic support in their agriculture. But the U.S. is asking other members to pay for their cut of domestic support, and ask others to have severe cut on their tariff rate for more market access, so that is the reason why we are still not having any breakthroughs in the Doha round."

The Doha Round global trade talks, launched in 2001, have been deadlocked for nearly seven years, as WTO members are still quite divided, especially on agricultural trade and industrial market access.

The ambassador further noted that as a the biggest beneficiary and the most active cheer-leader for multilateral trade liberalization, the United States should do more contributions for the success of Doha Round negotiations.

"On the whole, the U.S. as a major beneficiary for decades from the multi-lateral trade system. It should play the leadership role and also to lead by example, so that the other countries will equally show their flexibilities and try to make this round of negotiations a success."

Liao Jibo, CRI news.