Brazil’s Lula: US must respect WTO decision

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Wednesday that the United States must respect the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) decision which allowed Brazil to apply trade sanctions of $830 million to the US over the cotton trade impasse.

“Brazil has no interest in a confrontation with the United States, but the United States must respect WTO’s decision, or the world will become a mess,” said President Lula. The Brazilian President asked US
President Barack Obama to send a team to negotiate with Brazil on the matter, and reminded the US that if a deal had already been made, the two countries would not need to fight now.

“If the United States had, along with Brazil, made a deal in the Doha Development Round, we would not be fighting now, and the African people would be selling their cotton in the US and Europe,” he said.

Lula stressed that all countries, regardless of size, should be treated the same way. “We are all we sovereign and we must be treated on equal terms. I do not know if Obama will listen to me. The US is very rich and can do whatever they want to their economy,” Lula said.

The WTO authorized the retaliation to compensate for damages that US government subsidies to its cotton producers caused to the Brazilian economy, Lu said.

The Brazilian government Monday released a preliminary list of the US products whose import tariffs will be increased. Another list is to be released in the coming weeks. Following the publication of the list, which becomes effective on April 8, the White House said it was “disappointed” at it.

President Lula also made an appeal to President Obama on the behalf of African countries, which according to him suffer even more than Brazil from the US cotton subsidies.

“It is not Brazil that needs the reduction in the cotton subsidies, but the African countries,” the President said.

Last week, the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, during her visit to Brasilia, had proposed that compensation for the damage to Brazilian cotton producers could be negotiated.

On Tuesday, the US Secretary of Commerce, Gary Locke, came to Brasilia to meet with Brazil’s Minister of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade Miguel Jorge and Lula’s Chief of Staff Dilma Rousseff, but it was not a negotiation discussion yet.

A meeting between Brazilian authorities and the US representative for trade negotiations, Ron Kirk, may occur in April.