Before the World Trade Orga­ni­za­tion meet­ings began, a coali­tion of 100 devel­op­ing nations called on the pow­ers that be to agree to a new world trade pact. The coali­tion wants the WTO nego­tia­tors to pass a world trade deal by 2010, but pre­vi­ous dead­lines have come and gone with­out any action.

From this AFP arti­cle that is hosted at Google News, we found out more about the coalition’s state­ment, and who they believe is stand­ing in the way.

Launched in the Qatari cap­i­tal in 2001, the Doha Round aims at lift­ing devel­op­ing coun­tries out of poverty by strik­ing an accord that will cut agri­cul­ture sub­si­dies and tar­iffs on indus­trial goods.

How­ever, nego­ti­a­tions have been dogged by dis­agree­ments on how much major trad­ing blocs such as the United States and the Euro­pean Union should reduce aid to their farm­ers and the extent to which devel­op­ing coun­tries such as India, China and South Africa should lower tar­iffs on indus­trial products.

“There is urgent need to trans­late polit­i­cal state­ments into con­crete engage­ments in Geneva in order to accom­plish the shared objec­tive of con­clud­ing the Round in 2010,” said the state­ment issued after a meet­ing between G20 ministers.

With­out nam­ing names, Brazil’s For­eign Min­is­ter Celso Amorim pointed in par­tic­u­lar to “one coun­try which is stop­ping us from mov­ing forward.”

How­ever, another Latin Amer­i­can diplo­mat was more explicit, say­ing: “We clearly lack an explicit posi­tion from one of the most impor­tant mem­bers of the nego­ti­a­tions. We are of course talk­ing about the United States.”

He added that the WTO min­is­te­r­ial meet­ing “should pres­sure” Barack Obama’s admin­is­tra­tion to take a deeper engage­ment on trade talks.

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