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- <text id=90TT3236>
- <title>
- Dec. 03, 1990: Business Notes:International Trade
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1990
- Dec. 03, 1990 The Lady Bows Out
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- BUSINESS, Page 87
- Business Notes
- INTERNATIONAL TRADE
- GATT's Last Chance
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p> From Dec. 3 through 7, trade ministers from 105 countries
- are scheduled to sit down in Brussels to sign off on a major
- accord governing nearly $4 trillion in global commerce. But
- negotiations to revise the General Agreement on Tariffs and
- Trade are on the verge of collapse over the prickly issues of
- farm subsidies. Last week a new U.S.-European Community dispute
- over trade in services threatened to make an accord even more
- difficult.
- </p>
- <p> Earlier this month Secretary of State James Baker and other
- U.S. officials were in European capitals seeking a compromise.
- The 12-nation E.C. favors a 30% cut in domestic farm subsidies
- over 10 years, starting from 1986. But Washington, backed by the
- 14-nation Cairns group of major agricultural exporters, demands
- a 75% reduction in those supports.
- </p>
- <p> Inability to achieve a GATT agreement would dramatically
- increase tensions in global trade. That, in turn, could damage
- cooperation on issues ranging from the environment to the
- Persian Gulf crisis.
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
-
-