During Singhania’s visit along with a bi-partisan delegation of parliamentarians he pointed out that North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) among the US, Canada and Mexico was signed without agriculture because Canada objected to the inclusion of it. He expressed confidence in letting the Indo-US FTA to happen soon particularly on the basis of concordance shown by the US lawmakers and several US government officials to have it without agriculture for the time being.

India is looking forward to the next month visit of the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton in ironing out differences on all outstanding issues with the US, which saw last July the collapse of Doha Round talks. The Doha Development Round broke down after India, China and Brazil objected to the US farm subsidies that would inundate their markets with imports of farm and industrial goods. Thawing of Indo-US trade ties on agricultural issues is key to the success of forthcoming Doha Round talks in Geneva later this year.

Manmohan Singh’s second term sans Left Front has seen some major changes including the Left’s consensual candidate, Kamal Nath being replaced by Anand Sharma as Commerce and Industry Minister of India despite the former doing a fairly good job during his term. Last month, Sharma on the sidelines of Cairns Group’s, a coalition of agricultural exporting nations summit, while he met his US counterpart Ron Kirk has jointly agreed to take forward the multilateral negotiations and review the Indo-US bilateral ties.

However, the Indian business houses as well as the government is well aware of the fact the delayed Monsoon which is likely to play havoc to the country’s agricultural trade will thereby prevent them from engaging in any trade talks on agri-based issues for the time being. FICCI president’s words must be seen as an indicator that India is ready to conclude FTA with the US in consensual goods, and could include other items only in , the course of time.

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The US Trade Representative Ron Kirk revealed about the stalemate on the FTA at the sidelines of the inauguration ceremony of the Jacob Zuma presidency. However, he claimed there was still room for growth as South Africa was by far the largest beneficiary of trade under Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). He later added that it was possible to think of a new start with the new government at the helm since the US had very good foundation in South Africa with over 600 US business investments in various sectors.

Even though the central reason for the disinterest is not spelled out by the US authorities, the possibilities to this action seemed to be the same old ones. The old demand of the US particularly the intellectual property rights, and protectionist strategy could have checkmated the deal as of now.

South Africa is one of the SACU members that has largely benefitted by the Generalised System of Preferences that allows certain products to enter the US duty-free. South African clothing and selected textile products have duty-free access to the US market through the AGOA, an initiative of the Clinton administration.

According to the Department of Trade and Industry of South Africa, the US is the largest market for its merchandise. On the other hand, South Africa’s third largest imports are from the US.

South Africa’s trade analyst Peter Draper admitted that the US government’s move did not come as a surprise “for a number of reasons”. In his opinion, the failure to clinch FTA with the US is a huge blow to SACU.

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