If the Bush administration wants to win renewal of its trade promotion authority, most analysts are now saying that it will depend upon the president’s willingness to make concessions to Democrats by including labor and environmental standards. The Democrats seeking these measures generally want them included in bilateral FTAs and aren’t nearly as critical of the WTO negotiations for ignoring these concerns.

If my previous analysis is wrong and there is a chance of TPA renewal, then a Doha-only extension has the best chance. But that depends upon the DDA being sufficiently vibrant so as to make TPA renewal worth it. And without TPA, Doha isn’t going far, hence our nasty catch-22. But some are suggesting that there’s a window of opportunity:

The WTO negotiations have been suspended since late July, when governments proved unable to agree on farm subsidy and tariff cuts. They are now starting to show signs of life, and Geneva-based trade diplomats believe that there is a window of opportunity until around March 2007 for Members to assemble a ‘blueprint’ for a Doha Round deal that would offer gains sufficient to entice Congress into extending TPA. However, many blame the impasse on the US’ refusal to offer deeper reductions to its farm subsidies, and have argued that Washington must make new overtures in order to revive the talks. The passing of the election may have relieved some of the pressure to not announce subsidy cuts. The Bush administration has maintained in recent months that the US would not budge unless other countries modified their negotiating stances too.

Unlike the Reuters story I criticized a week ago, the ICTSD story contains details that make the window plausible. WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy called an informal meeting of the Trade Negotiations Committee on Friday morning. But I doubt the “blueprint” will include labor and environmental provisions, which may be necessary for even a Doha-only TPA renewal to be feasible:

According to the Washington Post, Montana Senator Max Baucus, who is likely to take over the Senate Finance Committee, has said that any legislation prolonging the president’s fast-track powers would have to “strengthen labour and environmental provisions in some way to win broader Democratic support.” Washington publication Inside US Trade reported on 10 November that he would also want TPA extension to be contingent on expanded support for trade adjustment, better enforcement of existing trade agreements, and increased export promotion efforts. Baucus has been a vocal supporter of providing extra unemployment benefits and retraining funds for people who have lost their jobs due to trade liberalisation.

Here are the relevant provisions in the 2002 Trade Act:

OVERALL TRADE NEGOTIATING OBJECTIVES.—The overall trade negotiating objectives of the United States for agreements subject to the provisions of section 2103 are—…

(5) to ensure that trade and environmental policies are mutually supportive and to seek to protect and preserve the environment and enhance the international means of doing so, while optimizing the use of the world’s resources;
(6) to promote respect for worker rights and the rights of children consistent with core labor standards of the ILO (as defined in section 2113(6)) and an understanding of the relationship between trade and worker rights;
(7) to seek provisions in trade agreements under which parties to those agreements strive to ensure that they do not weaken or reduce the protections afforded in domestic environmental and labor laws as an encouragement for trade;

The current provisions seem compatible with the Doha negotiations, and it may be possible to strengthen the labor and environmental provisions of the TPA legislation without negatively impacting the WTO negotiations. That means that we can’t rule out the possibility of TPA being renewed and Doha regaining momentum in 2007.

But that likelihood is small. The murmurs emanating from Geneva are merely low-level informal discussions without ministers, and there doesn’t seem to have been a shift in negotiating stances:

Although no attempts had been made to address the specific issues that have proved so intractable in the negotiations, the agriculture chair has taken the necessary initial steps to ensure that talks can begin more easily once the political will to do so has been established. “Crawford has turned on the engine to warm up the car a bit, but it’s not yet in gear,” said one delegate.