Uruguay Round

After a three-year deep freeze, negotiations to change the rules governing world trade are suddenly showing signs of life two weeks before what is widely considered a final deadline. The French government, which has blocked an agreement on agricultural issues for more than a year, has now raised the possibility of compromise. The chief international referee of the talks stepped up pressure on the United States Tuesday to respond positively, and U.S. officials signaled a willingness to do so.

U.S. to Take Japan Case to WTO: Trade Representative Mickey Kantor said Japan's unwillingness to protect U.S. sound recordings produced before 1971 is a breach of the 1993 Uruguay Round trade accord. "We're deeply concerned that Japan has not implemented regulations or laws that would satisfy their obligations under the Uruguay Round," Kantor said. "We have asked Japan to do so, they have failed."

With American support, international authorities have launched a make-or-break effort to revive the crucial round of global trade negotiations, which has been stalled almost a year amid a bitter dispute between the United States and the European Community.

GATT Ratified Amid Protests: The Senate ratified the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, handing another victory to President Fidel Ramos in his quest to open up the economy. Ending months of acrimonious debate, the 23-member body approved the accord as about 2,000 people staged protests outside the Senate building in Manila. Opponents warned that farmers and industries are not yet ready to meet the heightened competition coming from a flood of imports.

The chief American and European Community trade negotiators said Thursday that they had agreed on a formula to resolve a crucial dispute over farm products long viewed as the biggest obstacle to a global trade pact. The agreement appears to be the most encouraging step yet taken toward meeting the Dec. 15 deadline for developing new rules that could lead to a surge in worldwide commerce. At a news conference featuring lavish praise and thinly controlled elation, U.S.

Time is too short for a "fully settled" package covering global trading rules to be agreed upon by this December's deadline in the troubled Uruguay Round trade liberalization talks, the head of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade said today. Arthur Dunkel, GATT's director general, blamed both a lack of new instructions from governments to their trade negotiators and "hide-and-seek" tactics for the meager progress made in outstanding Uruguay Round issues.

U.S. to Take Japan Case to WTO: Trade Representative Mickey Kantor said Japan's unwillingness to protect U.S. sound recordings produced before 1971 is a breach of the 1993 Uruguay Round trade accord. "We're deeply concerned that Japan has not implemented regulations or laws that would satisfy their obligations under the Uruguay Round," Kantor said. "We have asked Japan to do so, they have failed."

Tokyo Pushes Uruguay Round: Japan is willing to further open its markets--including the contentious financial services sector--in an 11th-hour bid "to accelerate the process" toward a settlement of the Uruguay Round world trade negotiations, a Japanese government official in Geneva said last week.

GATT Ratified Amid Protests: The Senate ratified the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, handing another victory to President Fidel Ramos in his quest to open up the economy. Ending months of acrimonious debate, the 23-member body approved the accord as about 2,000 people staged protests outside the Senate building in Manila. Opponents warned that farmers and industries are not yet ready to meet the heightened competition coming from a flood of imports.

Bush, Major Call for Global Trade Pact by Mid-January: President Bush and British Prime Minister John Major said they want a mid-January conclusion to the 6-year-old Uruguay Round of world trade negotiations. GATT chief Arthur Dunkel said the negotiations have been moving forward, while the European Community's top trade negotiator, Hugo Paeman, said Brussels believes that the talks could be completed "in the first weeks of next year" with "a global and balanced outcome."

More than seven years and countless diplomatic rows after they began, global negotiations to reduce or eliminate a vast array of barriers to world trade will formally end amid a flurry of celebration Friday. Trade ministers from 116 nations that took part in the talks, known as the Uruguay Round, are expected to sign the final agreement in the Moroccan city.

Japan is likely to end its voluntary restraints on exports to the United States to comply with the global trade agreement concluded earlier this week, a government spokesman said Friday. Japan now maintains voluntary quotas on exports of autos, machine tools and textiles to the United States under bilateral arrangements negotiated to defuse trade disputes.

Global trade negotiators Monday inched to the brink of completing their seven-year campaign to rewrite the rules of international trade, with only a solution-defying dispute over entertainment issues standing in the way. One by one, some of the most contentious issues slipped toward resolution as negotiators reached agreement on textile quotas--a political headache for the White House--and maritime issues.

The 116-nation world trade talks enter a critical phase this weekend, with political pressure nearing a boiling point and more rather than fewer unresolved issues bubbling to the surface. With the central players--U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor and Leon Brittan, his counterpart representing the European Community--about to resume their marathon to reach an agreement, a senior U.S.

South Korean President Kim Young-sam said today that his nation will allow rice imports in order to help bring the global, multilateral free-trade talks to a conclusion. In an apologetic statement made during a special live television broadcast in Seoul, Kim said his government had done everything possible to protect the nation's 6.5 million farmers and its rice market.

If world trade is so good for us, why do we treat it like a new strain of the flu? After dragging on for eight years, the talks on renewing and expanding the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade reach a final, critical juncture in the next week.

Negotiators from most of the 108 countries participating in the Uruguay Round of international trade talks will meet in Switzerland today with little hope for quick progress. Arthur Dunkel, president of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, under whose auspices the talks have been proceeding for more than six years, will deliver a statement assessing progress--or lack of it--to date and urging the negotiators not to give up.

The United States and the 12-nation European Community apparently resolved longstanding differences on agricultural exports Tuesday, but any celebration was dampened by failure to reach the overall accord desperately needed to pave the way for a global trade agreement. Emerging exhausted from a 23-hour negotiating session, U.S.

Japan strongly hinted today that it will agree this week to open its rice market somewhat to foreign suppliers, which would remove a key obstacle in worldwide trade negotiations. Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa and other leaders seemed to be leaning toward accepting a compromise proposed by a subgroup of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. It calls for Japan to accept imports for at least 4% of its rice market beginning in 1995, increasing to 8% over six years.