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Sugar hard for US to swallow
2 Feb 2004
Senior US agriculture officials have been brought into the free trade agreement talks with Australia's Trade Minister, Mark Vaile. Agriculture Secretary Ann Venemann and her under-secretary JB Penn spent more than two hours in discussions with Mr Vaile but there was no breakthrough.
The biggest obstacle is sugar: the US will not open up its heavily protected sugar market to competition from Australian imports. The FTA could be worth $4 billion a year to the Australian economy, with sugar potentially contributing over 25 per cent of that. Australia also wants access to US beef, dairy, peanut and horticulture markets.
A spokesman for Mr Vaile said the minister will stay in discussions with his US counterpart, Robert Zoellick, as long as progress is being made. They have been meeting daily since last week.
Herald Sun, 2/2/04.
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