France Rejects Draft Deal on Global Trade(until US export credit chg)

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http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-France-WTO.html

France Rejects Draft Deal on Global Trade(until US export credit chg)
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 3:50 p.m. ET

PARIS (AP) -- French Trade Minister Francois Loos on Thursday rejected a draft deal on liberalizing global trade and accused European Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy of straying beyond his negotiating mandate.

Loos said the draft framework accord hammered out at the Geneva-based World Trade Organization was ``not acceptable in its current form.''

The WTO's 147 members meet next week in Geneva in a bid to reach agreement by July 31 on the broad principles for cutting subsidies and import tariffs as part of a new global trade treaty.

The talks made progress in May when the EU agreed to scrap export subsidies on farm goods, which are blamed for harming producers in poor countries.

But France has accused Lamy -- its own EU commissioner -- of giving too much away without getting enough firm commitments from other countries to scrap their own export aid, such as U.S. export credits.<snip>

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Some eyecandy...

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