US suggested India, China and Brazil should not be treated on a par with poorer developing countries

The US on Monday declared that India, China, and Brazil should not be interacted on a par with unfortunate creating countries, causing the polity to immediately table the offending.

“We cannot sustain a situation in which new rules can only apply to the few, and that others will be given a pass in the name of self-proclaimed development status. There is something wrong, in our view, when five of the six richest countries in the world presently claim developing country status. Indeed, we should all be troubled that so many Members appear to believe that they would be better off with exemptions to the rules. If in the opinion of a vast majority of Members playing by current WTO rules makes it harder to achieve economic growth, then clearly serious reflection is needed,” US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said

Developing countries such as India and Brazil enjoy special and differential treatment under various WTO agreements, allowing them to liberalize their policies over a longer period. Least developed countries have an even longer implementation schedule for reforms. Since China joined WTO several years after India and Brazil, it had to undertake higher commitments for opening up but it is still a notch below the developed world in many areas.

While the US has demanded higher commitment from India, Brazil, and China in the past too, its recent anti-free trade rhetoric prompted commerce & industry minister Suresh Prabhu to make a last minute change in his speech at the plenary session.

“We are increasingly seeing that the discourse on development at the WTO is sought to be deflected by specious arguments based on aggregate GDP figures. While in India we are proud of our GDP and growth rates of recent years, propelled by innovative economic policies of my government, we cannot ignore that India is home to more than 600 million poor people,” Prabhu said, in what was meant to underline the low per capita income in countries such as India despite the recent growth in the size of the economy.

“Therefore, we are legitimate demandeurs for special and differential treatment for developing countries. It is also noteworthy that many developed countries of today have benefitted from long periods of derogation from GATT rules in the area of agriculture and textiles,” the minister added.