In a last-ditch effort to save the Doha round of global trade talks, the World Trade Organization last week went public with its draft agreements. The move followed the June 21 breakdown of a meeting of four core negotiating partners — the United States, the European Union, Brazil and India. On July 18, one day after the draft agreements were released, the Japanese government announced that it could not agree to them at this point.
There is no doubt that the draft agreements are unpalatable to Japan, which wants to protect its agriculture from imports. But suspicion that the government's reaction was aimed at securing votes from farmers in the Upper House election cannot be ruled out. If this is true, it is regrettable.
The draft agreements call for limiting the number of important product items that will be protected by high tariffs to a maximum 6 percent of all the product items subject to import tariffs — a figure far lower than the 15 percent demanded by the Japanese government.