The collapse earlier this month of the so-called Doha Round of trade talks at the World Trade Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, may ultimately bring good or bad news to U.S. meat exports, but it’s still too soon to tell.

That’s the assessment of the U.S. Meat Export Federation’s Thad Lively, the group’s senior vice president for policy, planning and research. "We’ve tried to be as optimistic as possible," Lively told MEAT&POULTRY. "But with the current U.S. administration on its way out the door, and with changes in the EU’s administration coming later in 2009, it’s going to be tough to bring people back to the table soon." He said there seems to be a sense among U.S. and European negotiators that perhaps too much was asked for too soon by some nations involved in the Doha talks, including the U.S. and E.U.

The talks collapsed when certain anti-protection concessions would not be agreed to by China, which presently enjoys a huge US$1.2 trillion trade surplus with world markets as a whole, and India. Exporters of agricultural commodities in developing nations were also frustrated by not gaining any concessions from developed markets in terms of protectionist subsides.

"Our interest is focused on market access, and the two places where we stand to make the greatest gains from trade talks are Europe and Japan," Lively commented to M&P. "The pork market within Europe is much tougher for the Europeans right now than for us -- the higher feedgrain prices have hit them much harder, because they import a lot of grain." He said just a five-percent change in pork consumption in Europe could mean hundreds of thousands of additional pork tonnage headed to the E.U. from U.S. ports. The dispute over ractopamine, a pharmaceutical feed additive used commonly by U.S. pork producers but banned in the E.U., would also have to be negotiated successfully for "mass quantities," as Lively put it, of U.S. pork to be exported to Europe.

With regard to Japan, Lively said the previous round of WTO talks, known as the Uruguay Round, the U.S. and Japan agreed to a complex duty system on pork. Japanese negotiators are now asking for greater transparency in that system, and while the U.S. isn’t opposed to the request in principle, "we don’t want to agree to something that in the end is going to reduce our market access," Lively said. Japan also applies a 38.5 percent gate duty on U.S. beef, which American negotiators would like to reduce significantly. He puts Japan in the "unknown" category in connection with any results from a possible revival of the Doha round.

Another big question mark, Lively added, is Russia, which is not currently a WTO member although negotiations to bring Russia into the organization have been continuing for years. "Russia is becoming a critical market for beef and pork exports," he said. "Russia also wants to become self-sufficient in pork," though the temptation to import low-cost Chinese pork exports, once China produces enough pork to enter world markets, might be too great to resist. "Export quotas in Russia are set to expire in 2009, and what happens after that, nobody knows," commented Lively.