GENEVA, Oct 8: The United States holds the key to the success or failure of WTO talks aimed at liberalising global commerce and boosting developing countries, the French foreign trade minister said on Monday.

“There is a near-universal consensus that it is chiefly the Americans who hold the keys to either the success or failure of the Doha round,” Herve Novelli told journalists after his first visit to the WTO’s headquarters here.

The US is under pressure to cut its agriculture subsidies but demands in return that other WTO members, notably the European Union, cut their tariffs on agricultural goods.

Washington did say last month it was prepared to negotiate on the basis of proposals by the WTO’s chief agricultural negotiator Crawford Falconer that would see its subsidies cut to $12.8 to $16.2 billion.

During his visit to Geneva, Novelli met the WTO’s Director General Pascal Lamy, the ambassadors of key developing economies India and Brazil, and the heads of the organisation’s key working groups.

The minister said that France remains “completely in favour of an agreement, but not at any price”.

Referring to Falconer’s proposals, Novelli said that they “are already up against the (EU’s) red lines, and sometimes stray over them.”

Under Falconer’s text, the EU could cut its own overall trade distorting domestic support by a minimum of 70pc, and possibly up to 75-80 per cent.

Novelli said that the main sticking points remain cutting agricultural tariffs, and labels of geographic origin on farm products.—AFP