US And Canada Flare Up Over Farm Subsidy

"The United States has been providing subsidies to its agricultural producers that create unfair market advantages," Trade Minister David Emerson said in a statement. "We hope to see the US live up to its WTO obligations, particularly given that it has the opportunity to do so when it rewrites its Farm Bill this year." Canada argues that the US has exceeded the permitted level of trade-distorting subsidies for a number of years on farm products including wheat, sugar and soybeans. It urged Washington to address its concerns when it soon begins to draft a new Farm Bill, which will set out American agricultural support programs for the next five years. The US says it has offered cuts as part of the WTO's global free trade talks, but others have called the pledges largely artificial, addressing only maximum levels of government subsidies and not those actually distributed to US farmers. http://www.gulfnews.com/business/General/10096487.html [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on January 15, 2007]

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