The Australian conference of important groups of agricultural exporting nations will push for the revival of the faltered global trade talks, despite the idea that the European Union (EU) has declined the said trade deal. The Cairns Group is an organization of nations from Asia, South America, and South Pacific. The said group embraces almost one-fourth of the farmed goods in the global trade.



Cairns is a strong supporter and advocate of the visions and missions of the World Trade Organization and its Doha round of talks. The scheme created by the said group, which is to be backed up by the exporting nations, will increase the burden for the EU, United States, and other developing nations to solve the dilemma on the safety of the agricultural market that has almost bestirred the recent global trade round.

With regard to the said plan, the US should agree on cutting its farm subsidies by $5bn while the EU must assent to increase its offer on reducing farm tariffs by five percent. It must be noted that the misunderstanding over the reduction of farm subsidies among Japan, US, EU, and other fast-growing countries was the prime reason why the round of talks for global trade collapsed.

Mark Vaile, Australia's Minister for Trade, said that the plan is simply a bargain proposal. On the contrary, the EU Commissioner for Trade, Peter Mandelson, has refused to accept the proposition, and considering it as not highly feasible. Meanwhile, John Howard, the prime minister of Australia said that the organization's proposal for the global trade should push through. He also added that their group is already acquainted to European's rejection of new offers.

In an interview on the Australian media, Howard said that nothing is dead when it comes to the sector of negotiations and global trade. He added that there will possibly be a change on the trade despite the truth that larger countries have been ignoring their offers and suggestions for the trade deals.

The director-general of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Pascal Lamy, accused the selfish motives of other countries for the abeyance of the conference series on global trade. He also gave warnings that the failure of the conferences would paralyze the open market system of the WTO, and would hinder poor countries from developing.

Lamy also fears that the downfall of the global trade rounds will make multi-country trade deals be replaced by bilateral trade deals. This scenario, he added, will jeopardize all the policies that were agreed upon by all member nations of the WTO.

The beauty behind having free trade in the open market is that it will not touch the complicated system concerns of the global trade like the agricultural protection and clash settlement. Lamy also stated that bilateral free trade deals can help support multilateral concerns, though it can never be a replacement for the multi-country free trade deals.

Proponents of the Cairns Group said that the global trade rounds must be restarted as soon as possible before the momentum gets lost, and the changes in the trade that can help alleviate poverty sets back for ages. Vaile seconded that the said plan of the Cairns group is possibly the last-ditch effort of nations in reviving the postponed global trade conferences.