Cotton in a Free Trade World

The United States has issued a proposal to the world trading community outlining several steps to jumpstart the stalled World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations on agriculture. The proposal is intended as a challenge to members of the WTO to improve market access through “ambitious tariff reduction” and to “move aggressively” to cut trade-distorting domestic support (Portman, 2005). Although the major parameters of the proposal are yet to be defined, these steps seem consistent with commitments made by WTO participating countries to move agricultural trade negotiations forward in the framework agreement of July 2004.Agricultural and Food Policy,