US protectionism climb-down hailed
Europe's Trade Commissioner Baroness Ashton welcomed a US climb-down on protectionism - and urged President Barack Obama to concentrate now on completing a world trade deal.
She said a global accord this year - after eight years of negotiations and delays - could shorten the deepening recession by injecting confidence in global markets and keeping protectionism at bay.
The EU and Canada had both warned Washington that a "Buy American" clause as a condition of President Obama's £570 billion economic recovery package could breach World Trade Organisation rules and trigger a trade war.
But after the President acknowledged the last thing the world needed was a trade dispute, the US Senate diluted the conditions and declared nothing would be done in breach of WTO requirements.
"What President Obama has said is really good," said Baroness Ashton. "This is not the time for a trade war."
The next step, she insisted, was to capitalise on the chance of securing a global trade agreement this summer.
"If you are a new American president, looking to be a global player, outward-facing, giving industry support, you end up saying: 'we have to get a global trade agreement'."
Hopes of a deal after seven years of the so-called "Doha Round", collapsed last summer when China and India refused to open up agriculture markets as much as Washington wanted.
A new president in the White House was then seen as the next necessary change for a deal. Now most countries are waiting for the outcome of Indian elections likely in May.
Then, Baroness Ashton, insisted, the time would be ripe for an accord. The three key elements were the US and Indian elections, and a push from the G20 meeting which the Prime Minister Gordon Brown will host in London in April.
