MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

US interested in promoting bilateral trade with Brazil, in spite of Mercosur

Trade representative Ron Kirk

United States Trade Representative Ron Kirk said on Thursday the administration of President Barack Obama was interested in promoting a bilateral trade agreement with Brazil, even when it could mean bypassing Mercosur.

“More than talking about Mercosur or any other regional format, the purpose of my visit is to concentrate on the bilateral relation between Brazil and the US”, said Kirk in an interview with Brazil’s leading financial newspaper, Valor Economico.

Kirk is currently in Brazil to discuss trade issues among which a possible negotiated ssettlement regarding a recent WTO decision initiated by Brazil, condemning US cotton subsidies.

The US official met with Brazilian Foreign Relations Minister Celso Amorim but apparently no specific proposals for resolving differences on the matter emerged.

Amorim advanced that Brazil had not decided yet whether it would apply sanctions authorized by the WTO, but admitted it could also appeal to the implementation of “crossed” measures such as ignoring some US pharmaceutical patents.

Kirk said cotton was one of several issues of this trip but that “the main objective is to broaden the bilateral relation with Brazil”. He added that the agreements signed between President Lula da Silva and former president George Bush could be improved.

“Maybe we could think creatively in another mechanism, in another improved structure which could better define the understanding memorandum”, on trade and investments which was signed by Lula da Silva and Bush, Kirk was quoted.

More specifically on the WTO cotton ruling, Kirk pointed out that at the end of the day “the elimination of subsidies is a prerogative of Congress”. But he insisted the US was not interested in trade wars, be it with China as a result of the recent dispute over tires, or with any other country.

Surprisingly Kirk mentioned that the US could be interested in importing tires from Brazil.

Finally Amorim said that the Brazil and the U.S. had coincided that world trade negotiators could reach an agreement in the Doha round talks by 2010 and brushed aside the idea that a busy US domestic political agenda could be an obstacle to push ahead the talks.